


Life After You've Been Disappeared

by snack_size



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers Teambuilding, Background Pepper/Tony, Canon Divergent, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Hydra, Major Character Injury, SHIELD Agent Darcy Lewis, SHIELD Agents Being Badass, Science Bros - platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-07 12:43:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 50,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/748641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snack_size/pseuds/snack_size
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Immediately after the incident in Thor, Darcy Lewis is "recruited" into SHIELD - though she would argue disappeared is more accurate. But she makes some friends, meets some interesting people...and then gets embroiled in some more drama that eventually leads to her occasionally assisting the Avengers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In terms of canon - this is set post-Avengers, but was largely written before IM3. Also, it's canon divergent in terms of what we sort of know about Captain America 2 and Thor 2, so...
> 
> I've written Darcy!fic before, but it was pure, unadulterated id fic - and I have no regrets. But since then, I've read plenty of diatribes against Darcy and fic with Darcy in it, so I've wanted to write a realistic Darcy meets/interacts with the Avengers fic since then. Also, work in progress - characters and relationships will get added as they present.

This is how Darcy Lewis, idealistic political science graduate, wound up working for an extra-governmental shadow organization:

“Ms. Lewis, I’m Agent Phil Coulson from SHIELD,” said the man in the black suit who had come, a few days prior, and commandeered all of their stuff. “I have some paperwork I’m going to need you to fill out.”

“Oh, no way,” Darcy said, and she really wished that Jane and especially Thor were still around. Not that Jane would be really effective - but she’d at least be a witness. “That’s totally code for you disappearing me.”

“We do not disappear people, Ms. Lewis,” Agent Phil Coulson from SHIELD said. 

“Uh-huh. Dr. Selvig said he knew some scientist dude who worked for you guys and then _poof!_ never heard from the poor bastard again,” Darcy said. Even with his sunglasses, she could see his eyebrows raise. 

“We need to discuss some security concerns with you, Ms. Lewis, giving everything you’ve witnessed,” he replied. Darcy sighed - they probably had some guy at ready to drug her if she didn’t comply. This way, at least, there might be a hope for transparency. Or the shadow organization version of transparency, which would likely be...shadow-y.

She followed Agent Coulson into the abandoned office space that he and some other agents had set up shop in since the original owners had fled in the wake of the alien attack. Or other-dimensional being attack. Jane still hadn’t determined if Asgard was another planet or another dimension, and Darcy had ran, not walked, when Jane and Selvig had started debating that. 

Agent Coulson waved her over into a partially enclosed cubicle. Inside, there was a portable table. She sat and he gave her a tight smile. “Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea?”

“Coffee, please,” Darcy said. Everyone else in the room was wearing a suit and seemed to be watching her. Darcy rarely felt conscious of how underdressed she was, but there was something about a lot of fit men and women in uniform that put her flannel shirt and jeans in sharp contrast. She kicked her sneakers at the ground.

One of them had a coffee mug labeled SHIELD to her within a minute, and she smiled at him. He looked a little different than the rest of the agents - actually uncomfortable in his suit and tie, and a little bit more...rugged? Ruggedly handsome, actually, and Darcy sighed. Thor wandering around mostly topless had not done good things for her libido. “Thank you,” she said, and watched as Agent Handsome retreated to the corner. 

“I’m sure you understand that your proximity to this incident means that you are in the possession of a good deal of sensitive information,” Agent Coulson said. He placed a single black folder on the table. Darcy sipped at her coffee, then nodded. Agent Coulson and his accomplice just stared at her. “Have you given any thought, Ms. Lewis, to what you’d like to do when you complete your degree?”

“Uh...” Darcy said, because her dad was pushing law school and she had sort of paid lip service to that in order to get him to pay for the extra classes she wanted to take so she could graduate early, but... “Wait. Are you offering me a job?”

“Provided you are able to pass our initial new agent’s course,” Agent Coulson said. 

“You don’t even know if I can do...stuff,” Darcy said. 

“I believe you handled yourself quite capably during this event, Ms. Lewis,” Agent Coulson said, and since he still had his sunglasses on, she couldn’t tell if he was bullshitting her and they were just going to make her an administrative assistant, or something. Though in this economy... “We’ve also reviewed your college record and are impressed with your academic qualifications.” 

Darcy pressed her lips together. When people said things like that they were generally saying _because we didn’t think a spaz like you would have decent grades, let alone be at the top of your class._ “So you are going to disappear me,” she said.

“But we’re also going to pay you,” said the agent in the corner, and Darcy glanced over at him and met his eyes. He looked like he at least knew how to smile.

“Do I want to know what my other options are?” she asked.

“No,” Agent Coulson replied.

“OK,” Darcy said. “Where do I sign?”

Now she was reporting for her very first day of new agent training - after spending the time between her graduation, one semester early, and the next available training session working with Jane. Darcy was pretty pleased with how things had started - she had arrived at a Starbucks where she had met with a man dressed in a black suit, who bought her a cup of coffee. Pretty extravagant, for a government organization, Darcy thought, but she knew better than to say this out loud. 

She did not know better, though, when they got into the cab. “Are you going to blindfold me, or something?” 

The other agent looked at her and rolled his eyes, then pulled out his smart phone and began to scroll through it in earnest. 

Darcy was definitely disappointed, but not surprised, when they wound up in a nondescript office park in Jersey City. They rode the elevator together to the third floor, where several other agents were already waiting with new recruits. Darcy did her best to give them all a quick once over without looking like she was paying too much attention - but from the way they looked back she had a feeling she’d already failed at the whole being a spy thing. 

“You can introduce yourself,” her agent said, but this was largely an excuse to go and talk to another guy’s agent, since no one else seemed to be in a chatty mood. Still, that left the other new recruit without someone to awkwardly stand next to.

“Darcy Lewis,” she said. She extended her hand, and he glanced at her for a moment before shaking it. He was a good foot taller than her.

“Matan Zahavi,” he said. 

“Shalom Aleikhem!” she replied, and he narrowed his eyes at her. “Oh, shit. Are you from Israel?” 

“SHIELD is an international organization,” her agent interjected as Zahavi’s escort worked hard at suppressing a snigger. 

“Isn’t the H for Homeland?” Darcy asked, and then shook her head. “Never mind.”

“You’re Jewish?” Zahavi asked, and she nodded, and was relieved that he no longer looked like he wanted to do physical harm to her - she was willing to bet that he was probably recruited based on whatever skills he had learned in the Israeli military, so that was not something she wanted to happen. “American?”

“Yes,” she said. Hopefully he’d forgive her for some more of her stupidity. Thankfully, she was saved from further discussion by the arrival of two more agents and two more recruits, at which point one of the agents in the room moved to the center.

“Welcome,” she said. “I’m Agent Hendricks, and I’ll be teaching portions of your orientation. I’ll be assisted by Agent Beeslaar.” Agent Beeslaar was a very tall, very blonde man who reminded Darcy of Thor, though he was sort of like the poor planet/dimension’s version. She made a mental note that she was really going to have to check in with Jane to see if she’d figured that one out in the past few weeks. “Why don’t each of you introduce yourself, tell us where you’re from, your background.” 

A tall blonde woman started. “Rise Friesen, Denmark, I worked most recently at the UN.” 

Darcy scrunched her face, slightly. “Matan Zahavi, Israel, Israeli Army.”

“Darcy Lewis,” she said, in her most confident tone - cribbed from mock trial closing arguments. “United States. Uh, Culver?” 

She watched as a few people in the room, especially the agents, exchanged looks with each other. She wasn’t the only person right out of college, but the other two were from US Military service academies - which also meant it was likely that she was going to have to form international connections. Despite being in a military organization, she didn’t tend to get along too well with people who gravitated towards that sort of thing. Rounding out the last three was an English guy from MI6, a woman from Egypt who had worked in counter-terrorism, and a Swiss aeronautical engineer/physicist/genius. Darcy was fairly certain that she was the youngest in the group. Hopefully, she thought, this was going to lead to someone wanting to adopt her. Probably the genius - she was good with them. 

* *

Darcy wasn’t able to tell anyone in her class how she had managed to get recruited by SHIELD until after their first week of training. Then they received their first level of security clearance and sat through a presentation called _SHIELD’s Recent Actions_ where they all learned about the cult that Captain America had fought in WWII and how it persisted to this day, and how there had been a minor extraterrestrial encounter in a small town in New Mexico. 

That afternoon, Rise sat down next to her at lunch. “You,” she said, “were up to something in a small town in New Mexico, weren’t you?” 

“Internship,” Darcy said, and grinned. 

“So they disappeared you,” Rise said, and then Swiss Sam - used to distinguish him from Uncle Sam, who was from West Point - sat down at their table, mostly because he was trying to get in Rise’s pants. “Darcy was in New Mexico with the alien.”

“Ah,” said Swiss Sam. “I guess I owe Matan ten dollars.”

“Really?” Darcy asked, and Swiss Sam shrugged. “You had that little confidence in my abilities?” 

“No,” said Swiss Sam. “Just based on a quick analysis of your lack of military or science training or...any experience, really.” 

“Fair enough,” Darcy said.

“So what did the alien look like?” Rise asked. Darcy thought back to all of the non-disclosure agreements she had signed - nothing had indicated she couldn’t speak to anyone who wasn’t affiliated with the incident, and as far as she knew, affiliation could be broadly construed to include knowledge and working at SHIELD. And, speaking of SHIELD they really needed to get some better lawyers to draft that shit. 

“A lot like a Norse God, actually,” Darcy said. Rise and Swiss Sam laughed. 

* *

“How is spy training going?” Jane asked, when Darcy called her after she finally passed security level one and was given access to the single phone in their dormitory. They had all stood in line for it like mental patients, except for Uncle Sam - it made Darcy want to recalculate her initial perception of him, if he didn’t have a single person he wanted to call - that might be the reason he turned out to be heartless bastard. 

“Well,” Darcy said. “We learned about New Mexico today.” Rise laughed, somewhere behind her in the line - she wasn’t as concerned, given that all of her relatives were on a different continent. 

“Mmm,” Jane said. “I still can’t believe you signed up to be one of them - some suit! I mean, I suspected it, so did Selvig, but...”

“Look, you guys are useful, trying to figure out your...thing,” Darcy said. “But I was a political science major, I mean, not like I could switch and do a degree in astrophysics-”

“To be fair, I’m not sure if you really have the aptitude for that,” Jane replied.

“This is why there aren’t enough women in science, Jane Foster,” Darcy said. Jane laughed, and Darcy realized that she missed her. She had tried not to think about it too much when she had packed off - she had told Jane she needed to get herself a job in her field, and Jane had rolled her eyes. They had become friends, though. Funny how nearly getting annihilated by an alien assassination machine would do that to you. “Selvig still around?”

“No, he went off to go and work on some project with the suits,” Jane said. Darcy could hear her eye roll all the way in New Mexico. “So, just me, now! On my own - on my own, with no one here beside me.” 

“I never took you for a Les Mis fan,” Darcy said.

“Is that where that’s from?” Jane asked, and it was Darcy’s turn to eye roll. What had Jane done when she was at Caltech and Stanford - no, Darcy knew what Jane had done, and she could have had her pick of all of the hot nerd men around her. Then she went off to New Mexico and bitched at Darcy about how there was no one decent to date, unless, of course, someone fell out of the sky.

Darcy opened her mouth slightly - she hadn’t made that connection until now.

“Darcy?” Jane asked.

“I just wanted to uh, say, hello,” Darcy said. “And now I have to say goodbye, so I can call my mom and assure her I’m not dead.”

“Oh,” Jane said. “How did you convince her that you wouldn’t have your cell phone within arms reach at all times in case she wanted to debate the merits of different peanut butter brands?” 

“I’m camping,” Darcy replied.

“And you got a job while you were camping?” Jane asked.

“I dunno,” Darcy said. “Maybe I peed in some guys foxhole, he was impressed by my moxie, and...look, I’ll sort it out.” 

“That seems implausible,” Jane replied. “Well, anyway, bye. Sell out!” Darcy could imagine Jane trying to make some sort of ‘rock on’ hand gesture as she said that and smiled. She checked her watch when she hung up - exactly six minutes to deal with Patricia Lewis, which was ideal. 

“You’re seriously going to call your mom?” asked the Air Force graduate, who had signed on to be a pilot and who was so bland that Darcy had difficulty remembering his name - Kyle? Chris? 

“Who, exactly, are you going to call?” she asked. Craig looked back down at the binder with the reading they’d been assigned to do for tomorrow, and Darcy inhaled and then dialed her mother.

* *

“Seriously, this is so not cool,” Darcy said, crouching behind a concrete wall and holding her paintball gun close to her chest. She was decked out in full on riot gear - big-ass vest, googles, and helmet. 

“What did you think, you were signing up to go to summer camp?” Uncle Sam asked. He had done a douchebaggy fist pump when he was told that his scores on the shooting range meant that he got to be a Team Captain and then had immediately deflated when he found out that he had Darcy, Rise, and Swiss Sam on his team. 

“No, man, I anticipated this kind of shit,” Darcy replied, and rolled to make it behind the larger block he was behind. She glanced behind her and the projectile that had narrowly missed her ass. “But why the fuck is some dude shooting arrows at us?” 

“Ah,” Uncle Sam said, handing Darcy some more paint gun pellets. “That is a good question - but then again, aliens are real.” 

“No, not the same thing,” Darcy said as she reloaded her gun. “They say paintball, I expect paintballs. Not paint tipped nerf arrows.” 

“I would say that this is some sort of, ah, metaphor for what we will experience as agents, yes?” said Swiss Sam, briefly poking above a damaged brick wall that he had taken shelter behind and hadn’t moved from. He aimed at Matan, but missed his head.

“There are never just two teams,” Rise confirmed. Despite the fact that her Scandinavian height made her look like a gladiator, she was actually the worst out of all of them and had only missed getting hit because Uncle Sam had tackled her to the ground. 

“We’re going to have to make a move,” Uncle Sam said.

“Why, we are down no one and they have already lost Cory,” said Swiss Sam. “We only need to wait them out to be the winners.” 

“Dude,” said Uncle Sam, “All due respect, but I am not taking advice from someone who comes from a neutral country.” 

Later, headed to the showers with red paint saturated through her pants from the ill-advised assault Uncle Sam had decided they needed to stage - _didn’t they teach them military strategery at West Point?_ Darcy wondered - she almost walked straight into the guy with the bow and arrow.

She stopped, and her eye wandered to the purple accents on his skin tight suit and then traveled up to his impressive biceps. Finally, she realized she needed to say something. “I am so sorry,” she said, and met his eyes. She was surprised to see that it was the Other Agent from New Mexico, the one who had sort of smirked at her while she signed away her freedom, possibly her soul, and most definitely her self-respect.

“Good shooting, out there,” he said.

“Thanks,” she replied.

“Seriously, though, you’d think they taught strategy at West Point,” he said, and then side stepped her and continued down the hall, quiver bouncing against his ass.

* * *  
“Darcy?” said Dr. Selvig, one afternoon in the cafeteria during her first week of work as an agent in the intelligence division - and she was pretty sure she’d heard all the jokes, from her fellow trainees, after getting her assignment, but then again, they’d proven to be more creative than she was willing to give them credit for. 

“Oh, hey, Dr. Selvig,” Darcy said, and smiled at him as she selected a bowl of fresh fruit. They should really put the whole free meals with plenty of healthy options thing in their recruitment pitch.

“I just...strange seeing you here, after all,” he said, opting to go for the homemade chicken pot pie.

“I could say the same,” Darcy said. “Would you like to get lunch?” He nodded, and she pressed her lips together - Selvig had a Level Seven security badge, compared to her Level Two. It was doubtful there was going to be anything they could talk about, beyond the cafeteria food and the weather. Maybe not even the later. Who knew what SHIELD had their hands in?

They sat down, and both looked at each other for a moment. Darcy ran her hand through her hair and then smiled at Selvig.

“Please don’t give me some spiel about how you’re disappointed in me,” she said. “You’re the reason I’m here, really.” She punctuated this with her fork before spearing some salad.

“How do you figure?”

“You were the one who came and gave that presentation at Cornell - I had to attend, for my political theory course-” Selvig arched an eyebrow at this “-it was on astrophysics and alternate realities and we were reading Zizek at the time,” she said, and was sort of pleased, after plenty of afternoons with him and Jane, that he seemed to be drawing a blank. “Whatever, interdisciplinary bullshit and ideology. I went, and I talked to you afterwards, remember? And you told me about one of your proteges who was looking for an intern and doing really fascinating work in New Mexico...and here I am.”

“Mmm,” Selvig said. “I would have to accept some responsibility, it seems - though I didn’t have anything to do with the instigating event.” 

“Maybe you did, maybe one of your Viking ancestors fucked someone and your genes were some kind of locus for drawing everything to that particular place,” Darcy said, “Because really, what are the odds? No, don’t calculate them, I’m cool with infinite.” 

“I’m Swedish,” Selvig said. Darcy shook her head.

“One of the women I trained with was from Denmark,” she replied. “She’s sort of my supervisor now, she’s a level above me because of all her experience at the UN doing...secret stuff that she can’t talk about. You want me to set you up with her?”

“Uh, no, that’s alright, Darcy - Agent Lewis, I suppose.” Darcy nodded and used her fork to point at her name badge. “You like it here?”

“Yeah,” she replied, and Selvig didn’t appear mollified. “Look, in this economy, I’d probably be back home working for the Gap and applying to law school - which is far from a sure bet, nowadays, despite what my father this. This is a steady paycheck, free food, nifty clothing allowance...” Darcy, despite what she had thought, liked the suit thing. Made getting ready for work in the morning a hell of a lot easier - plus she appreciated that SHIELD had their lady agents wear a tie as well. Hid where her shirts sometimes pulled. 

“You’re in intelligence?” he asked.

“Go ahead with whatever joke you want to make,” Darcy said.

Selvig shook her head, and she had to smile at him. She wondered if he would consider being her dad/mentor, or something. “You like it?”

“It’s certainly interesting,” Darcy said. “Not boring, the day goes by quickly, they’re giving me free Russian classes...I’m good, Dr. Selvig, don’t worry.” 

“I suppose that’s a good outcome, then, for being-”

“Disappeared?” she supplied, and he nodded. “Plus, I got to give everyone this canned speech about how I was going to work for a nondescript government agency that was studying world agriculture, or something, and so they all _know_ I’m a spy, so that’s pretty cool.”

“I thought the point was for you to have a legitimate cover-”

“Well, they don’t know who I’m spying for - I mean, CIA, NSA, no one even really knows about SHIELD...so, bad-ass cred, you can add that to the list of benefits.” 

“That’s good,” Selvig said. 

“Fuck, we shouldn’t keep talking about me - how are you doing?” Darcy asked.

Selvig shrugged, then tapped his finger on his security badge. “Well, very well. Fascinating project, plenty to do...I never thought, after what happened to Dr. B-to my one friend, that I mentioned, the physicist, there would be anything that would get me to come work for...” 

He trailed off, but Darcy smiled. “It’s cool - I sort of figured you were involved in the Big Secret in the basement,” she said. “I mean, not the basement here. The metaphorical, ah, basement.” Selvig gave her a relieved smile. 

* * * 

Darcy looked up from the due diligence she was doing on the mountains of data that had just come in from one of their field offices - she’d been reading for too long, her eyes were bleary - and flinched slightly when she saw Rise in the doorway. “Shit, was my report wrong?” she asked. One chewing out per day was enough. Not that Rise would chew her out - even though her experience had made her Darcy’s superior, she still treated her as she had when they were trainees. 

“No, Darcy, it’s...they had to evacuate the Joint Dark Energy Mission tonight.”

“What?” Darcy asked, and she clicked on her computer and pulled up the SHIELD intranet browser. The evacuation was the only item on a usually crowded front page, though it didn’t say anymore than what Rise had told her. “Do you know..?”

“As much as that said,” Rise replied. “Plus we are all supposed to assemble to our disaster preparedness location.” 

“Shit,” Darcy murmured, opened her desk drawer, and grabbed the watch that her mother had bought her for her college graduation. Rise arched an eyebrow as Darcy stood and put her badge around her neck. “I take it off to type with...”

“Ah, right...” Rise said. “Your scientist friend, the Swede, he works there?” 

“Yeah, I think so,” Darcy said. She hadn’t seen Selvig recently - not since she’d got him to bring along another scientist colleague and go out for a drink with her and Rise two weeks ago. “I mean, he never said, but he said he was going out West so I just presumed...” When they turned the corner in the hallway they joined a flow of other intelligence agents, all of them talking in the same hushed tones, speculating and looking at each other nervously.

“Who gets the drop on us?” Some man asked ahead of her, and Darcy nodded her head along with the thought. They were supposed to be _the_ secret organization. 

“The whole facility?” Darcy asked.

“That is what the intranet said,” Rise replied. 

“Yeah, I. Right. You’re ice cool, aren’t you, part of being Scandinavian.” Rise rolled her eyes at this as they turned another corner for the main atrium. _It must really be serious,_ Darcy thought, _they’ve closed the coffee dispensary._ Free coffee was provided twenty-four seven, which Darcy had initially thought was absolutely fantastic until her tour revealed other features and the larger picture came together - free coffee, medical clinic, dental clinic twice a week, gym, free food in commissary...they were never, ever going to leave this place. 

All of the agents from intelligence were still milling around, and a few were beginning to appear peeved that no one had stepped forward to make an announcement. “That’s a bad, sign, right?” Darcy asked. “I mean, they have to make a statement-” She stopped when everyone else stopped talking when the head of the their intelligence group’s voice came over the loud speaker.

“We’ll have more information for everyone in a moment,” Agent Ford said. “But first, I need to ask Agent Darcy Lewis to come forward and go with Agent Salinas.” 

Darcy didn’t respond immediately, because she was attempting to figure out if it was possible to get disappeared from the organization you’d been disappeared too - Agent tall, scarred and still in sunglasses at night seemed to indicate the answer was yes. Rise had to elbow her in the side. “I don’t know why they want me!” she said.

“I would guess your unique experiences,” Rise replied, voice soft, and Darcy widened her eyes and then nodded. Possibly. Hopefully.

She was hugely conscious of all of the eyes on her as she walked forward over to where Agent Ford and Salinas were standing near a doorway. _That’s right, I am very busy and important,_ she thought, mostly so that she could keep looking straight forward and not being overwhelmed by the feeling of dread that was rising up her throat.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Agent Lewis,” said Agent Salinas, opening the door and gesturing with his hand. Darcy gave him a slight smile, because while she recognized the opportunity for a smart ass comment, it wasn’t going to be anything he hadn’t heard before. She was beginning to catch onto the sense of humor that you developed when you worked for one of these organizations. “You know Eric Selvig?”

“We’re acquiantances?” Darcy said. Salinas had stopped as soon as they were on the other side of the door and it was clear he was staring at her even though he was wearing sunglasses. “We’ve had lunch, a few times.”

“And you worked with him in New Mexico during the Thor Incident,” Salinas replied.

“Yes,” Darcy said. 

“We were hoping you could help us with some insights into his behavior,” Salinas said. 

Darcy frowned. “Is he all right - he was at-”

“He’s been compromised,” Salinas said. “There is also concern that you may be a target.”

Darcy widened her eyes. “I am really not that-”

“The attack on the JDEM was instigated by an individual who identified himself as Loki of Asgard.” 

“Thor’s dick wad brother that tried to kill him with the Destroyer?” Darcy asked. Salinas’ lips almost moved, but he was able to restrain himself. 

“Yes,” he said. “That would be him, as far as we can tell.”

 _Well, shit,_ Darcy thought.


	2. Chapter 2

“Oh, no,” Darcy said, as soon as she saw the agent waiting for her by the helicopter. “You can’t disappear me twice.” 

Agent Coulson’s face didn’t even move, but there was something sad in the way his jaw was set, so Darcy decided it would probably be for the best not to push things. “Agent Lewis,” he said, and gestured at the helicopter.

She was a bit clumsy, getting in and almost tumbling into Coulson’s lap. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve never been in a helicopter before.”

“First time for everything, Agent Lewis,” Agent Coulson said. He handed her some ear muffs to wear to drown out the noise and, apparently, to speak and hear through. _Technology!_ Darcy marveled. 

“We could use your assistance, Agent Lewis,” Agent Coulson added as she settled the headset on. It was definitely weird to have him call her that. It was also a reminder that she had, as Jane said, joined the bad guys’ team.

“Is Jane alright?” she asked, and felt ashamed - deeply ashamed, somewhere deep in her gut - because she hadn’t thought about Jane until now.

“She’s being moved to a secure location outside of our direct involvement,” Agent Coulson said, and Darcy nodded. “I’d like to get your impression of Eric Selvig.” Darcy chewed at her lip, wondering what it meant that he was Eric Selvig, rather than Dr. Selvig. 

“I’ll do what I can, sir, but I think some of his latest colleagues might give you a better impressions-”

“We have reason to believe Dr. Selvig may have been under the undue influence at that point.” 

“Oh, well...” Darcy said, and quickly laid out everything she had learned and thought about Selvig in the quick verbal memorandum style she had been taught. 

“Anything else?” Agent Coulson asked.

“Well, he got drunk with Thor that night, after he came back from trying to get his hammer back...” she had to looked away from him, knowing that he was there and had played a part in Thor’s grief. “Thor dumped him on the couch in Jane’s RV and then Thor made us breakfast the next morning, which was...nice.” It really said something about Thor, she realized, that he had been smiling and pleasant at breakfast that morning even though he was grieving for his father, his life, his whole universe.

“Did Thor ever speak of his brother?” Darcy furrowed her brow and had to wonder if that was what Agent Coulson had really wanted to hear about the entire time. 

“Not really to me, mostly to Jane...but he didn’t know the full story, then,” Darcy said. “One of the other guys - Fandral the Vain, I think? - had some choice words about him too, apparently he’d taken over their...planet? realm?” Agent Coulson didn’t correct her, so she continued, “And tricked Thor and then tried to kill him? My general impression was that he was a pretty big dickstain?” 

“I don’t think that’s far off,” Agent Coulson said, and normally, people would smile with that sort of comment, but he did not. Darcy chewed at her lower lip again. She really wished she’d brought her chap stick. “Because of your prior relationship to Thor we’re taking you to a secure location, as well.”

 _Please let it be the Helicarrier please let it be the Helicarrier,_ Darcy thought, because she had only seen the mythic ship when it was docked in SHIELD’s secret island base in the Pacific Ocean. The remote location of the island had made her fairly certain, despite assurances to the contrary, that it was one of those atolls they’d used to test nuclear bombs on. It was rare for intelligence to get stationed on the Helicarrier, and she had been just a little jealous when Uncle Sam got his assignment there - this had only been mollified when she looked at some online plans and realized how small lower level agents quarters were. She, at least, had a small apartment off base.

Instead, the Second Time that Darcy got disappeared she wound up in Manitoba, which meant that she missed every single bit of excitement that transpired over the next two days and had to watch all of it on television with three other SHIELD agents who had likely been stationed in Canada due to incompetence of some kind. 

“It was so not cool,” Darcy said to Rise, when she came to fetch her in one of the small SHIELD air crafts. The exiled agents looked a little miffed that Darcy was getting freed - Harrison, especially, since he’d convinced himself he could get into her pants. 

“I brought you some coffee,” Rise said, handing her a cup. “We’re all set, Agent Neubauer.” The pilot gave her a salute as Rise motioned for Darcy to sit down and strap herself in. 

“They had Maxwell House there,” Darcy said. “That was when I knew they’d all been exiled there for incompetence. And, really - I met Thor! I was...cool with Thor, and now everyone else-”

“Got to nearly plummet to their doom or get blown up by aliens in New York?” Rise asked. Her tone was stern, and Darcy immediately got it and felt really stupid and childish for spending the past two days acting petulant and pouting.

“Right,” Darcy said. “I’m sorry. To be fair, I only started thinking that after the world was saved.” Rise nodded and gave her a slight smile.

“We had to watch everything on television, too,” she said. “Uncle Sam died.”

“Shit,” Darcy said. She had never thought that anyone she personally knew might have been in the crossfire. 

“Dumbass tried to take on the rogue agent,” Rise said. “And don’t ask - no one knows who it was, just that Loki brainwashed one of our own with his magic stick.”

Darcy raised her eyebrows, stifling some laughter. She had caught the stick with the glowing orb during some of the feed from Manhattan, but had just thought it was some egomaniacal prop. “Well.” 

“I thought you would come to the memorial service with me,” Rise said. “It’s for everyone, but...I don’t think he really had family.” 

“Yeah,” Darcy said. “OK, sure.” 

* *

The memorial service turned out to be something of a mini-reunion for their training group. She and Rise were instantly spotted by Swiss Sam, who spoke in hushed tones about his own experiences evacuating from JDEM - he’d been one of the first to get out, but still, things had been very tense. “As we drove away the place exploded,” he said. “We felt the reverberations in our car windows. Is that Matan?” 

Matan was sipping a cup of coffee with a cast all the way up to his shoulder, looking pissed off and melancholic. Darcy kind of wanted to give him a hug, but knew he would probably stab her in the kidney for it. Instead, she gave him a slight wave and was surprised when he seemed relieved and walked over.

“I was in New York,” he said. “Trying to get civilians underground - I was working at the Times Square office. Chunk of building fell on me. I was stuck under it for four, five hours...” he shook his head. “It is being held together by duct tape and prayer.”

“I’d like to think our medical insurance coverage is better than that,” Rise said, and arched an eyebrow. She only could get away with snarky comments because she was Scandinavian. 

“A rod, six plates, and untold pins,” he said. “I’m being transferred to intelligence.” 

“Velkommen til helvede,” Rise said. 

“Thanks,” Matan said. “We should probably head inside.”

Darcy had a hard time paying attention to the ceremony - there were so many people, more than she had thought, and each had a short one to two minute recorded presentation narrated by some co-worker. Most of them choked up as they spoke, and she didn’t really want to listen or else she was going to tear up. She cried over just about everything - as soon as chords of _I Will Remember You_ appeared during regularly scheduled commercials she had to turn the channel or else she’d spent the night haunted by Sarah McLachlan and puppies in crates. 

She tried to carefully look around so that no one else would realize she wasn’t paying attention, but they were all spies. When she couldn’t take it any longer - someone was making a chortling, sort of hiccuping sound when they talked about their best friend in weapons development - she got up and made it for the bathroom.

Someone was crying in the stall next to her, and she debated asking if the person was alright - but that was sort of a stupid thing to do, given that this was a funeral. Also, she hated people who talked to you when you were in a bathroom stall, like it was perfectly reasonable to just strike up or continue a conversation. Darcy washed her hands for longer than was really necessary, and, when the other occupant didn’t emerge, she walked back to the main hall.

She stopped when she saw two people enter from outside on the opposite end of the hall. Male and female, she figured, but other than that it was difficult since they both had on dark sunglasses, hats, and dark baggy clothing that obscured their shapes. Darcy told herself they might be a threat, even though she knew no one could get past the security outside of the building to get in. She walked towards them, pretending to be oblivious, and picked up another program that was waiting by the door. They ducked into the far door entering the hall.

Darcy sighed, then opened the door closest to her. She took an empty seat in the back - not wanting to disrupt everyone, she told herself, certainly not so she could keep an eye on the mysterious duo who were standing close to the door. She flipped through her program and sighed as someone talked about what a good soldier Uncle Sam had been. Several more names came after that and the mystery duo stood completely still. Then the background music stopped and the lights shifted, slightly.

“Agent Phillip J. Coulson touched many of us at SHIELD,” began a voice, deep and gravelly, as a picture of Agent Coulson filled the screen. Two thoughts occurred to Darcy almost simultaneously - _shit, he died_ and _Is that Director Fury?_ Darcy glanced over to the mystery duo and was surprised when the female put her arm around the male’s waist and he sunk his head into her shoulder. “He was a mentor, a friend, an exemplary agent...”

 _That was the rogue,_ Darcy realized, and then chastised herself - for someone who worked in intelligence, it should have come to her a lot sooner. Her next conclusion, though, she decided to credit herself with being around the right time - _it’s the archer,_ she realizes, _the guy who got me coffee when I got disappeared. The hot archer._ It made her sad, even though she didn’t know the guy at all, besides those two quick exchanges. But she had been able to tell he and Agent Coulson were close, and she could sympathize with his sadness. Plus, from her experience with SHIELD, it was pretty rare for those with higher level security clearance to show any emotion, even if they’re trying to be stealth. Before possibly-Fury finished the two darted out, and she glanced down at her program and sighed.

After, they all decided to go for a drink because Uncle Sam would have wanted them to - the only thing he seemed to have strong opinions about were craft brews. Before they could head out into the parking lot, though, they all turned sharply when something small and brunette darted moved towards Darcy.

It became immediately apparent that Jane was about to hug Darcy, and she gave all of them a thoroughly disapproving Jane frown. “You all thought I was going to knife her or some shit I can see from how you’re standing,” Jane said.

Darcy decided it was prudent to hug her, then, and Jane was - if possible - thinner than Darcy remembered. This was immediately concerning. 

“Dr. Jane Foster, astrophysicist,” Darcy said, and there is recognition on all of their faces, and Jane gave them a little wave - a bit like how the Queen of England does, which makes Darcy smile. “And this is Rise Friesen, Matan Zahavi, and, uh, Swiss Sam.”

“Sam Glassner,” Sam said, and Darcy grimaced at him slightly. He smiled. He extended a hand to Jane. “I loved your paper on fluctuations in intergalactic ionization fields.” 

“Ah,” Jane said, and ran her hand through her hair after shaking with Sam. “Thanks.”

Darcy resisted the urge to roll her eyes - apparently Swiss Sam was going to hit on whatever highly educated lady parts came into his purview. “We were going to get a drink,” Darcy said. 

“That would be really, really good,” Jane said. “Can you ride with me?”

“Yeah,” Darcy said, and Jane nodded at the security badge affixed to the lapel of Darcy’s black suit. “I’m off-duty,” Darcy said. Jane smiled.

Darcy settled into Jane’s rental car, which was littered with food wrappers and books. “I thought you were in a secure location,” she said.

“They sent me to Tromso,” Jane replied.

“I don’t know if that is better or worse than some near-Arctic research station at the ass-end of Manitoba,” Darcy replied. Jane grimaced as she followed the SUV that the rest of the agents were in. 

“Wouldn’t that be on the Hudson Bay?” she asked. Darcy shrugged. She hadn’t really been allowed outside. “Well, Tromso is the most northern Norwegian city - no, it’s OK, it’s not that cold, especially this time of year, it’s got a maritime climate, and it’s pretty, and they’ve got a pretty good facility...” Jane trailed off as she made a turn.

“But?”

“But!” Jane said, and she clutched the steering wheel a bit harder. “But! Thor comes to Earth, and...then just fucks off, and yeah, I get it, he had to get Loki to Asgardian justice or whatever but I don’t even get a fucking phone call, and it’s been...” she sighed. Darcy nodded, because she had expected this as soon as she saw Jane. “And I am certainly not going to sit around with some research grant that magically materialized just because SHIELD wanted it to. Uh, sorry.” Darcy held her hands up, not willing to say anything. “So I came back, just to assess the situation, and I was sorry to hear about Agent Coulson-”

“You called him a ball sac, last we talked about him,” Darcy said. Darcy had got all of her good genitalia related insults from Jane.

“Well,” Jane replied. “I guess I wanted to see you. See what was going on?”

Darcy nodded, and Jane gave her a wan smile as they pulled into a little hole in the wall bar that Rise had found that SHIELD agents tended not to frequent. It made Darcy wonder if Rise had been disappeared as well, since she seemed to share a lot of Darcy’s attitudes about the place. Either that, or the anti-establishmentarianism was a function of being Scandinavian. 

“So we are drinking craft beers?” Swiss Sam asked - well, Darcy corrected herself, probably just Sam, now.

“Ha,” said Rise, “PBR probably functions as a craft beer here.” She grinned at the bartender. The place was empty besides them, and Darcy immediately eyed the juke box in the corner. “We need shots,” she said. “We need vodka.” 

“Oh dear,” said Jane.

“My pleasure,” said the bartender.

They set themselves up in a large both with shot glasses, a bottle of somewhat decent vodka, and a pitcher of soda water with limes in it. Darcy and Matan argued over music and then made a compromise, and by the second shot Darcy was feeling relaxed and somehow a little more in control of things - not a good response, and she recognized this, but right now she was willing to allow it due to extraneous circumstances. Alien invasion, all of that. 

“So you were the one who discovered the sky anomalies?” Rise asked, once they were all suitably drunk.

“Well, yes - I mean, I was the first person to notice them, they’d always been there...a cosmic breach, I guess, where the realms, or planets, or...well I haven’t quite sorted that out...” Jane began, and then she made a little fist. “Of course, I can’t do anything with it because I had to sign all of these agreements with SHIELD so I could get my shit back and anything I discovered went right to them...” she glanced over at Darcy, who arched her eyebrows.

“Wait,” said Matan, “you are doing this because they made you?”

“It was an option,” Darcy said, “but they were very persuasive. Plus! Housing allowance!” She grinned. “Don’t look at me like that, it’s cool - I like it. I would have ended up in law school, otherwise.”

“Ew,” said Rise.

“What about you?” Jane asked. “You most have stories.”

“I was recruited after an incident,” Matan said. “I was taken prisoner at gunpoint and stabbed several times. When I awoke I was in a hospital and an agent was there to debrief me. They suggested I would be less likely to wind up in that sort of situation with them.” Everyone glanced at his arm cast, and he shrugged. “I have dodged enough bullets, as they say.” 

“I just wanted to get into JDEM,” said Sam, shrugging. “But then I was mostly working on designs for a better Quinjet, propelled by some hypothetical energy source...” Darcy furrowed her brow - did he really still think, after JDEM blew up because of some...something, that whatever energy source it was was hypothetical? 

“The interesting thing about doing research on international security and geopolitics,” said Rise, slowly, “is that you might uncover the fact that there exists another extragovernmental security council-”

“I knew it!” Darcy said.

“Fuck,” said Sam, “how many people do they get that way?” 

“It is some perverse head hunting,” said Matan. “If you are good enough to find them, you are good enough to join.

“Well,” said Jane, crossing her arms, “I am certainly not getting involved in that shit.”

* * 

The next few days were strange - back at work, everyone tried to act like it was the same, except it wasn’t. There were so many layers of wrong it was difficult to process. People were dead, aliens had invaded, super heroes had saved New York... Darcy sighed. All of the other material she’d been working through seemed banal in comparison. Who cared about insurgents in Chechnya who may or may not have some of the last leftover Stark Weaponry? Or some guy fucking around with replicating nanobytes in China? But memos were still due, people still wanted her to sit through power points, and the coffee was still free.

Jane called a week after the bar - Jane had ended up sleeping over, and they had a much more in-depth discussion about _feelings_. “So! You won’t believe what happened?”

“Mmm,” Darcy said, picking at the cookie she had got. 

“So apparently Thor mentioned me during the whole thing and he got to talking with Selvig after he was brainwashed - even though they won’t let me! - and he’s admired my work for, like, a long while, so he-”

“Who is he?” Darcy asked.

“Oh,” Jane said. “Tony Stark. They hired me. Well, Pepper Potts hired me, since she’s in charge. I’m going to work with him and...you know, liaise with SHIELD. But this way, at least, I know they’re not going to stick me in some tiny office - oh, sorry.”

“No apologies,” Darcy said. “You’re the genius.”

“You’re pretty smart as well,” Jane replied, and Darcy shrugged. Yes, she was, but she wasn’t at Jane’s level, Selvig’s level, certainly not Tony Stark’s level. 

“That’s really great,” Darcy said. “So you’ll be closer, in the City, right?”

“Yeah, working out of the Tower,” Jane replied.

“Aren’t you a little...I mean, it seems to be a beacon for alien invasions,” Darcy replied.

“Well, I guess, but Stark is there and you should see, he has tons of those armor suits, and Dr. Banner, as well-”

“Wait, the Hulk?” Darcy asked - the Hulk could sneeze at Jane and shatter her.

“Well, most of the time he’s a super-brilliant physicist,” Jane replied, a little terse.

“Of course,” Darcy said.

“So, I think, you know, in terms of security, that’s probably good,” Jane replied.

“I would say so,” Darcy replied. “This is good news. We can hang out more than if you were in the Arctic Circle.”

“I don’t think it’s that far North,” Jane said. “But point taken.” 

After they hung up, Darcy had to wonder if anyone thought putting that many geniuses and superheroes in the same lab space was a good idea or not. 

It took twenty minutes for someone else to reach this conclusion and for an agent she had never seen before to arrive at her door. She had wondered whether she should tell Jane the phones were tapped - not that it made a difference, something like this was going to get out regardless.

“Agent Lewis,” he said.

“Yes,” Darcy replied. This was getting all too familiar - _time to be glib!_ “Can I finish my cookie?” 

* *

After several meetings and interrogations to determine whether or not she was a clone, robot, alien spy, or other sort of security threat, Darcy was sent off to Stark Tower to check out whether anyone should be concerned about the fact that there were that many geniuses and superheroes in the same lab space.

“Hello,” she said, when the door to the lab opened - and it really looked like something out of science fiction - Pepper Potts by her side. “I’m Agent Lewis.” She thought Jane would appreciate it, but she was nowhere in sight. Instead, Stark looked up from something he was welding and pushed some safety glasses of his face.

“This is who they’re replacing Agent with?” he asked, grin spreading across his face.

“No,” Ms. Potts said. “She’s just here to...well...liaise.”

“Which is what Agent did!” 

Darcy glanced over at Ms. Potts. “Agent Coulson,” she said, frown briefly appearing on her face. “We worked with him a lot.”

“I’m sorry,” Darcy said.

“Tony is convinced his first name is Agent.”

“You should aspire to that, Agent Lewis,” he said, walking over to her. For a guy his age, he looked pretty damn good in the ribbed tank he was wearing. _Of course he does, dumbass,_ Darcy thought, _he’s a super hero. Plus he’s taken._

Darcy extended her hand and didn’t make a face when he rubbed oil and who knew what else over her palm. _I am shaking hands with Tony fucking Stark,_ she thought, _maybe being disappeared isn’t so bad after all._ “I do, sir.”

“Sir? Really? I do not look that old, I’m not getting monthly facials-” Ms. Potts rolled her eyes at this, and Darcy kept her face as neutral as possible. 

“Ms. Lewis worked with Jane Foster in New Mexico,” Ms. Potts said.

“Well, wait, what? Why the fuck didn’t you say so? You’re Darcy?” Stark gave her a look that was a little more admiring - which was interesting, because being Darcy was arguably a lot less bad ass than being a top-secret intelligence agent.

“Well, yes,” Darcy said. 

“Your intern is here!” Stark shouted, turning his head. Jane emerged a few moments later, almost swimming in clothes that may or may not have originated from Tony Stark. Jane had a habit of stealing from men, for some reason. She had several things from Selvig, so it extended beyond men she’d slept with.

“Oh, gosh, hey! Surprise visit?” she asked. “Oh, shit, are you here in your official capacity?”

“Yeah,” Darcy said, and pointed a finger at the suit and nodded. Jane shook her head.

“She’s not my intern any longer, you know,” Jane said to Stark. 

“So this is what happens when you’re an intern and you happen to be in the middle of our first contact?” Stark asked, and it looked like he was doing some calculations in his head. “You get a job at SHIELD?” 

“We have a free coffee dispensary,” Darcy said, recognizing the look of another addict. “And full dental.” 

“Do we have full dental?” Stark asked Ms. Potts, who nodded. 

“So what does the evil empire want you to do?” Jane asked.

“Not entirely fair, you know,” Stark said, voice a little lower, a little more serious. “You’re sort of complicit in her getting in that situation.” 

“They stole all my stuff,” Jane said. “They took Darcy’s iPod.” Stark arched an eyebrow.

“It was when iPods were...cool,” Darcy said. “I was just told to come over, say hello, remind you about the contracts you’ve agreed to with SHIELD-”

“She means,” came a voice from the corner, and it startled Darcy, “that she’s here to make sure putting three mad scientists in a lab together isn’t going to lead to a global apocalypse.” Darcy hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about Bruce Banner - more the Hulk, because how did he keep his pants on? - but what emerged was not what she expected at all. She should have known, though, he fit the archetype of Culver University professor - glasses sliding down his face, sleeves rolled up, pants that didn’t fit right. Except he was cute. Really fucking cute, with just the right smattering of grey hair and _I may have become a physics major for that_ , she finished.

“Dr. Bruce Banner,” Jane said, “this is Agent Darcy Lewis, formerly my intern Darcy Lewis.”

“Oh,” Dr. Banner said. “So you worked on Dr. Foster’s thermoisomorphic-”

“No,” Darcy said, before he went any further. “I majored in political science.” 

“She was the only one who applied,” Jane said, wincing slightly, and before Stark could open his mouth she shot him a look. “It was the location, which was in the middle of buttfuck, New Mexico - when I was at Stanford I never had a problem.” She crossed her arms.

“Well,” said Dr. Banner, and he jammed his hands in his pocket. “There’s no evidence of apocalypse here.” 

“Really?” Darcy asked, scrunching her nose slightly, and Dr. Banner glanced away and shrugged, like saying, _well, it was worth the effort._ “Doesn’t matter, though, not like I would know what an apocalypse looks like.”

She thought it was a sort of clever response until she saw Dr. Banner’s reaction and then realized what an asshole response it had been. She pressed her lips together and he nodded at her - he’d certainly got worse - but she felt bad, he seemed like a decent guy. 

“You’re the show of force?” Stark asked.

“They could have at least sent the former Israeli Army dude,” Jane said.

“He’s not very intimidating given the full arm cast,” Darcy said.

“SHIELD isn’t really known for intimidating,” Stark said, “well, there are...I mean, I pee myself every time I see Agent Romanoff, but - look at Coulson. Except that man could kill you with a bag of flour.” 

“I believe that report was exaggerated,” Ms. Potts said.

“And how would you know about that?” Stark asked.

“How would you?” Ms. Potts asked, and both Dr. Banner and Jane rolled their eyes. _Cute!_ thought Darcy, _science friends!_ They needed a theme song, or something. 

“Well,” said Darcy. “I suppose we should discuss any prurient portions of your research that are applicable to the agreements with SHIELD each of you have signed as consultants?” She kept her smile inward at Stark’s expression. _Yes, that’s right, I know important words,_ she thought. She couldn’t have done too badly in law school. Except this job was possibly less likely to remove her soul.

* * 

“So no one has heard of Thor since he went off with Loki?” Darcy asked, getting coffee afterwards with Jane and making sure to change into a pair of jeans and a loose shirt to emphasize that she was off the clock - or off the record, whichever was more applicable.

Jane sighed. “Apparently he talked about me, but...I mean, I understand, he had to go off and deal with his family issues.” She rolled her eyes at this, as though these issues didn’t include a brother who had tried to conquer her planet and subjugate her. “I just...there wasn’t much time, to make a phone call, except maybe after, I mean they went out for shwarma, of all things...” She shook her head.

Darcy had the urge to reach forward and take her hand, but she held back, because Jane seemed more angry than anything else. “It’s hard, I suppose, to have feelings for an alien.”

“We’re not sure about that,” Jane replied. “But...yes. It’s been so long, you know, I wonder if I should...what is that face for?” Darcy shook her head, attempting to remove whatever face it was - she had never, over the semester and subsequent summer she’d spent with Jane, seen her interested in men. Granted, the pickings in town were sort of small - _in more ways than one, haha, Lewis,_ she thought, mostly because the rancher had blown her off. So the image of Jane, out on the prowl, looking for men...it just struck her as hilarious. 

“Well,” Darcy said, “If you wanted, we could go out for drinks.”

“Last time you were my wing woman you slept with a cattle rancher,” Jane said.

“But a - you weren’t interested in him, and b - he never called me back, so I got my comeuppance,” Darcy said. “Uh, Rise could be your wing woman? I bet she’s good at it.” 

“No one would be able to see me,” Jane said. “But she is a good time.” 

* *

Rise took them to a bar in New York that was, apparently, a hangout for Scandinavian expats. “Isn’t that a bad idea?” Darcy asked, before they picked Jane up. “I mean, the dude she’s trying to get over or whatever sort of looks like...a Scandinavian.” 

Rise shrugged. “She likes tall, blonde, and Viking,” she replied. “Besides, there are other Europeans there as well. And they do not play music so loud that you cannot hear yourself talk to your companions.”

“Europe sounds so civilized,” Darcy replied. 

“You have not been?”

“Well, I went to Israel for my birthright,” Darcy said. “And then instead of studying abroad I went to New Mexico...so, no.” Rise shook her head.

“I will start bidding for field assignments for us in Europe,” she replied.

“We can get field assignments?” Darcy asked.

“I can,” Rise replied, “and I may pick my team.” 

“Nice,” Darcy said. SHIELD probably had a decent per diem for that sort of thing. 

Jane scrunched her face up when they first entered the Scandinavian bar, but while there were tall blondes there was no one that looked particularly Thor-like - most of them didn’t have facial hair or the stature, but then, who did, really? 

“Three aquavit,” Rise said to the bartender, who smiled at her and poured them each three larger than average shots. “Skol, mine damer!” 

“Skol!” Jane and Darcy said, and clinked their shots together. 

“Holy shit,” Jane said.

“What the hell was that?” Darcy asked, fighting hard not to spit the stuff out. The last time that had happened was when she and her roommate had thought it was a good idea to do shots from an eight dollar handle of vodka in college. 

“Home,” Rise said, with a faraway look and winsome smile. She brushed some of her hair out of her face. 

They didn’t begin discussing the bar’s prospects until they had two more shots and then settled down with mixed drinks. “He’s cute,” Jane said.

“That is Soren Vibekerson,” Rise said. “He is in DESA - sorry, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. And he is with another lawyer, but he’s Norwegian, Hans Berdahl, but I think he is in private practice now. Sell out.”

“Said ironically,” Jane said.

“Is that why you brought us here? Because you’ve prescreened everyone?” Darcy asked.

“Some more than others,” Rise said with a smirk, and waved the two lawyers over.

“I don’t know if I’m ready for this,” Jane said. 

“You’re charming and brilliant, there is nothing to worry about,” Rise replied. 

This is how Darcy Lewis wound up going to an apartment in Brooklyn Heights instead of back to her own apartment in the bowels of New Jersey: 

“Darcy, you slut!” Jane said in the bathroom, playfully smacking her. _Whatever, man, I have not been laid in a long while, let alone by someone this hot,_ she thought as Jane accepted a kiss and phone number from some Canadian biophysicist, or some shit - Rise had taken on one of the other lawyers, proving she was indeed a valuable wing-woman.

“Would you like something for breakfast?” Soren Vibekerson asked, rolling over and wrapping an arm around her waist. Darcy sucked in her stomach.  
“As long as it includes coffee,” she said. “Downside of the job, caffeine addiction.”

“Mmm, of course, if you are working anywhere with Rise,” he said. “I do not think the woman sleeps - if anyone could figure it out...” 

_That would explain a lot,_ Darcy thought, and in her post-fucked and still a little intoxicated state, she thought, _maybe a vampire - like those sparkle ones, but without the sparkle...they never slept._

As he walked her to the subway, Darcy clutching another cup of coffee to go, he pulled out his phone. “We could do this again, sometime?”

“As long as by this you mean exactly this,” Darcy said. “Because I don’t have-”

“Goodness, who does?” he asked, with a sort of loopy grin that was vaguely Thor-ish, and Darcy smiled back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not know where it came from, and it certainly has no basis in canon, but I love to think that Jane Foster has a filthy mouth.


	3. Chapter 3

“Darcy!” said Rise, leaning in door a week after her one night stand. “I hope that you have your go bag packed.” 

“Oh?” Darcy asked, looking up from her paperwork. “Where are we going?” She grinned. Finally!

“Chernobyl.” 

“Haha, Rise,” Darcy said. “Seriously, though, where?”

Rise pursed her lips. “Well...technically, Pripyat, Ukraine.” 

“Fuck,” Darcy said. “We better get some damn containment suits, or something.” 

“Well,” Rise said. “I’ve heard it is no longer _that_ radioactive...” Darcy rolled her eyes at this. “We have a briefing with the team in...ten minutes, so do you want to come with me?”

“As long as there is coffee first,” Darcy replied, and she really wished that this probably wasn’t super-classified so she could text Jane about this development. Jane would certainly have something to say - but she would probably feel bad. 

“Darcy, please,” said Rise, and they grabbed large cups before heading for one of the meeting rooms. 

“Wait, is it just the two of us?” Darcy asked.

“Mmm,” Rise said. “We will mostly be relaying back and forth between the team in the field and the other analysts here.” Darcy narrowed her eyes and realized it was possible that Rise had a more senior position that she was letting on - possibly another Scandinavian thing, or possibly because she hadn’t wanted Darcy to know. Out of friendship. Which was endearing.

“Is this at least going to be interesting?” Darcy asked. “Like, are there going to be radioactive mutants or fluke monsters or something, because-” she stopped when she was acutely aware of the fact that there were eyes watching her, and looked up and her mouth opened when she saw the Black Widow standing in the door arguing with a shorter bald man. And, sure, they were going to Ukraine, but there were plenty of other Russian-speakers working for the organization so what kind of shit was she getting involved in? She arched an eyebrow at Rise.

“Agent Friesen,” said the man in the door. “Have you met Special Agent Romanoff?” 

“No,” said Rise, and when she walked over to Agent Romanoff it was sort of like watching two large ice flows headed towards one another. Darcy was intrigued by the way that they eyed one another up, as though they recognized whatever fundamental similarity it was between them. “Pleasure. This is Agent Lewis.” 

“Good afternoon,” Darcy said, and then felt incredibly lame. It didn’t seem to register with Agent Romanoff, however. 

“And I’m Agent Sitwell,” said the bald man. “We haven’t met, I don’t think - and there are two other agents currently in Berlin who are going to be Skyping in, which just means that we’re missing-” Agent Romanoff cocked her head to the door and Darcy inhaled sharply and then almost kicked Rise under the table - but stopped when she realized that Rise had no idea about the Hot Agent who got her coffee or her brief encounter with the guy with the arrows. “Agent Barton.” 

For some reason, it had not connected with her until that point that the rogue agent, Agent Barton, and the arrow guy, who she had processed as Hawkeye - because that was what he was being called in the media - were one and the same. Cue yet another joke about her working in intelligence. They were too at the funeral, as well. Darcy inwardly sighed and gave both a tight smile. 

This also meant, she realized, that there was only one Avenger left for her to meet. _Figures,_ she thought, _it would be the one I’m most interested in. From a purely intellectual standpoint._

“You’re both new,” Agent Barton said, leaning in the door and narrowing his eyes.  
“Yes, well,” said Agent Sitwell, who glanced at Agent Romanoff who glanced at Agent Barton. Darcy, feeling the need to glance at someone, glanced at Rise, who was drinking her coffee.

“I have over ten years experience in the intelligence community,” Rise said, cocking her head slightly.

“Agent Friesen has been to the site before,” Agent Sitwell said.

Agent Romanoff - it was harder to think of her as that, and Darcy keep reverting to the Black Widow and had to remind herself that she was a professional, damnit - looked at Rise and asked something in Russian. Darcy presumed it was an inquiry into whether Rise spoke the language. 

Rise replied in something that definitely sounded like Russian, then switched to something that was similar but not quite. Darcy resisted the urge to smile. Agent Romanoff just gave her a curt nod.

“Good,” said Agent Sitwell, “now that we’re all done with our...” he trailed off, and Darcy filled in _pissing contests_ for him, “we can get onto to the point at hand, which is that two independent investigators went missing in Pripyat while they were documenting animal mutations in the area-”

“Actual animal mutations?” Rise asked. 

“That’s what the official paperwork says,” Agent Sitwell replied. He slid each of them a folder. Darcy gave it a cursory overview and had to wonder exactly what she was going to do with this group - she had no fucking qualifications to be here, other than the fact that she’d tased an alien in the New Mexico desert. _Coordinating intelligence,_ she thought to herself, _probably means sitting around in the Pripyat Marriott with my laptop reading vague reports of weird shit in the area while everyone else has super mutant adventures._ Such was the life of a very junior agent, about to go on a trip to a nuclear ghost town. 

* *

It turned out there was actually a hotel in Chernobyl - the town, near Pripyat, not the nuclear plant - and it was all the Soviet Era architecture Darcy had ever wanted. “I hope we get, like, two days to go somewhere on the way back?” Darcy said to Rise as they unpacked.

“Maybe,” Rise said. “I told you we would go to Europe - I do not specify where.” Darcy shrugged.

It turned out there was also a cafeteria in Chernobyl, ready to serve the last few workers and military officials who were stationed there. Darcy felt odd being on the job and out of her suit, but they were posing as UN investigators with Rise at the helm. 

Agent Barton slid his tray across from Darcy silently and appeared irritated at the fact that he had to sit with the four other operatives to maintain their cover. “Same as before?” Romanoff asked Rise.

“The food seems better,” Rise replied. “Perhaps due to an uptick in tourism. I was here last in 2003, I believe.” She poked at the dollop of sour cream in the center of her beet soup and arched an eyebrow. 

“Best if you mix it in,” Romanoff said. Darcy followed the instructions - she would know, after all. Besides, the beet soup actually looked edible, it was the mystery meat that she was concerned with. 

Agent Barton barely made a sound the entire time, and Darcy began to feel itchy around him - she wanted to ask him about their encounters, at least, if he remembered her, even though she knew that he did and it was...dumb of her to want that kind of confirmation. Besides, he was clearly not in good shape - the deep pockets under his eyes had taken up permanent residence. She felt concerned for him, even just with their brief interactions, probably because he was so different from the person she remembered. 

_Just be cool,_ Darcy told herself. It was something she had to frequently repeat throughout her workday, and it made her wonder if she was really cut out for this sort of thing. Everyone else was so stoic and...cool, and she was just a mess, really, even if the suit did a good job of disguising it.

“Agent Lewis,” said Agent Romanoff, and she looked up, a little surprised. “Have you been to this part of the country before?”

“No,” Darcy said. “I’ve never been to Europe, actually, uh, just Israel...” she trailed off, glancing over at Rise, but she was eyeing her meat with the same degree of suspicion that Darcy had. 

“So this is your first trip,” Agent Romanoff said.

At the same time, Agent Barton said, “Well, that’s useful.” 

Darcy met his eyes. She was surprised to see hurt there - and a recognition that maybe, Darcy shouldn’t be a target for that sort of thing. He held her gaze. “To be fair,” Darcy said, “I think that I’ll probably just be sifting information back at the hotel.”  
She had taken a good, long look at the large weaponry stuffed bags both of the operatives had brought along - it had made her a little nervous, wondering if that was standard procedure or if it was that sort of mission. And, if it was the later, she would have liked to have been appraised of that - because didn’t they get hazard pay? She had better get hazard pay just for going to Chernobyl. 

“Yes,” said Agent Romanoff, and Darcy knew she wasn’t going to be able to parse anything out of that, so she turned towards her mystery meat - it’s not like they were going to have a vending machine with food just sitting around in radioactive zone. 

Later, settling in with Rise and reviewing the information about the kidnapped investigators again, she said, “We’re not going to need to use our guns, are we?”

“Why?” Rise asked, “you haven’t been neglecting your shooting range time, have you?”

Darcy put her earbuds in and smiled. _She is just trolling me,_ she said. _She is just trolling me._

* *

“So,” said Agent Romanoff, the next afternoon after Darcy had spent her morning reading - well, speed reading - two books on Chernobyl from SHIELD’s database. “We need to know if there are any other similar disappearances in the area.” She had opened Darcy’s door and entered the room without Darcy noticing, and she doubted she would have even if her earbuds weren’t in. 

For a moment, Darcy glanced around the room to see where Rise was before remembering she had stepped out because she had to go and pretend to be a UN attache for awhile. _Shit,_ Darcy thought. “Well, we’ve gathered all of the reports SHIELD has on file,” she said. “Even the...vague ones that sort of permeate around an area like this.”

“No discernible fact patterns?” Darcy shook her head. She’d done that research herself. “You would argue this is an unrelated incident to those that have occurred in the past two years?”

“I would say there is a strong probability,” Darcy replied. The first thing you needed to know about being an intelligence agent was to never one hundred per cent commit to anything, even something like the fact that people breathed oxygen - as far as I know, sir! - because it would likely come around from somewhere and bite you in the ass.

Agent Romanoff nodded and considered this, standing in the small hallway that granted them access to their cramped bathroom. “There are people who have refused to leave the zone, you know,” she said.

“Yes,” Darcy replied. “But all of them are accounted for, and, uh, none of them seem to have any strange capabilities.” She glanced off to the side - if only. She had been wearing a geiger counter and an alarm around her wrist since they’d arrived, and while the levels had never approached the moderately dangerous level, she still was a bit concerned. The only thing that might alleviate that would be if she were guaranteed to get super powers - though, knowing her look, they would be incredibly lame super powers. 

“I wasn’t thinking that,” Agent Romanoff said. “But that’s an interesting point.” She turned and left the room. _Interesting good, or interesting bad?_ Darcy wondered. She hated it when professors had left that word on her essays and papers.

* * 

The next morning Agent Romanoff decided they would canvas all of the remaining people who lived in the Zone of Exclusion under the auspices of working for the UN. Darcy got paired with Agent Barton and Rise, while Natasha took the two German field agents. Agent Barton did not seem pleased with this.

“He responded to the fire at the core,” Rise said, as they stood outside a small cottage that a man in a wheelchair lived in. “He lost his leg to cancer.” 

“Ask him if he has seen anyone new around here recently,” Agent Barton said. Rise translated, and laughed at the man’s response.

“Just us, and the people who came before us. He says we are stupid for coming,” she said.

“Well, I think he’s stupid for staying,” Barton replied, and crossed his arms before walking away from the two of them to radio Natasha. Rise pursed her lips.

“You know...” she began, and then shook her head. The man in the wheelchair said something, his voice softer, and Rise leaned in. He spoke to her for a minute, perhaps longer, and she nodded periodically until he finished. “Thank you,” she said. “Darcy, come with me.”

“OK,” Darcy said, and she wanted to ask what it was as they trotted over to Agent Barton, who narrowed his eyes at them. 

“The other investigators were asking questions about the explosion, his involvement in it,” she said. “And who were the people who treated him for his cancer.”

“Not animals,” Agent Barton said, and then relayed into his cell phone what Rise said. Before the conversation could continue, though, all three of their monitoring devices began to emit a warning as the geiger counter crackled as levels of radiation climbed. “Let’s move,” Agent Barton said, and they were quickly back in their rental Jeep. Darcy reached into her back and grasped at the thyroid cancer preventative they’d been given. 

“Strawberry flavor,” she said, looking at the label after she squirted some into her mouth. “You know, a nuclear reactor explodes, nuclear bomb, whatever, I am not going to be concerned with what flavor this sh-stuff is.” 

She was really pleased to see Agent Barton almost sort of grin, his lips curling upwards in what might have evolved into a smile if he didn’t check himself and then set his jaw back into his steady, determined face. She passed the preventative to Rise, who then handed it to Agent Barton. 

“You know,” Rise said, as soon as the geiger counters stopped scratching at them, “It may be useful to let the intelligence agents on your team in on whatever it is you and Agent Romanoff are thinking.” She arched her eyebrow.

“Agent Romanoff suspects that she knows who is responsible for what happened to the other investigators,” Agent Barton said. “She thinks that they were looking into things that someone else did not want them to know about.”

“Who would care, though?” Darcy asked. Before she could finish her thought, Rise jumped in. 

“Something to do with the treatment following the radiation,” Rise said. “Even the inside data indicates that the explosion was a massive fuck-up, not some planned thing.” 

“Which doesn’t mean that someone didn’t come in to take advantage of it,” Darcy added. She caught Agent Barton’s eye in the rearview. 

“Exactly,” he said, and she felt pleased - she was more than just the girl carrying around the awful anti-cancer flavored squirt bottles. “And we - Agent Romanoff - thinks whoever sent this...someone wanted to make sure no one found out about it.” 

“And we - SHIELD - know of that someone, or so you believe.” Rise said. “That narrows the options.” 

“It would,” Agent Barton replied. 

“And the investigators are probably not alive,” Rise said. “Are we supposed to find out what they were trying to dig into?” 

“Who they were working for,” Agent Barton said. “And who took them.”

“Killed them,” Rise said. Darcy suddenly felt like she was watching a tennis match.

“Presumably,” Agent Barton replied, and took a sharp turn to head back to the hotel. Darcy glanced down at her geiger counter, suddenly wondering if the spike in radiation was somehow connected to what was going on.

* *

She and Rise wound up with a lengthy conference call with the intelligence agents in New York, and it only took thirty minutes for massive files to get transferred to them to read. Darcy slid her glasses up her nose. Halfway through the first file, there was a knock on the door. “Come,” Rise said.

She was surprised to see Agent Barton standing with a coffee carafe in his hands. “Figured you might need this,” he said, voice flat. Rise nodded. 

He sat down on the tiny chair in the room and poured each of them coffee into paper cups. Darcy was surprised to taste something other than the hard, stale coffee they’d had at the hotel. “Thanks,” she said.

“You do this enough, you know to bring your own stuff,” he said. Darcy almost smiled, imagining him stashing bags of freshly ground coffee in amongst the variety of bows, arrows, and other assorted weaponry he’d brought with him. 

“That’s a good tip,” Darcy said. Agent Barton leaned back into his chair.

“Na-Agent Romanoff said you got information about Zephyr?”

“Mmm,” Rise said, and she took a long sip of her coffee. “You have a tablet? I can send you the file?” Darcy hadn’t even noticed he had a tablet in a SHIELD embossed sleeve tucked under his arm. Perhaps it had the invisibility technology of the Helicarrier - but that really didn’t seem to be a good use of resources. “You have it?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Agent Barton said, and he poured himself a cup of coffee. Darcy raised her eyebrow at Rise, who shrugged. Apparently they were having a bit of team bonding. She could do that, she supposed, though it was the most awkward team bonding she’d ever experienced. Maybe there was something to ice breakers.

They read in silence for some time before Rise handed her cup to Agent Barton, who gave her a look, and then a smile. He poured her another cup. “What do you think?” 

“Of..?”

“Zephyr?” Rise said. “You think they are the ones who sent the agents?”

“Probably,” said Agent Barton. “I mean, I’m not the one who...”

 _No,_ Darcy thought, _that’s supposed to be our job, but apparently we’re just here to support Agent Romanoff on a need-to-know-basis._ She didn’t know why she was so resentful of this, or surprised. She was a Senior Super Special Agent, or whatever, Level 7 clearance.

“Well,” said Rise. “Then we just have to figure out who the someone else is.” She watched Agent Barton’s face intently, Darcy wished there was some way for her to telepathically communicate her conclusion. “But you just trace backwards, from who you think was sent.”

“Right,” Agent Barton said. He scratched at his head. “I’ll leave the coffee with you.” 

He stood and left, walking past them without looking at either of them on the bed.

“That was weird,” Darcy said, when he closed the door. Rise nodded. 

“Then again, most things, working here, are weird.” 

“Was it like this at the UN?” 

“No,” Rise said, considering the question. “But it was still ridiculous.” 

* *

There was another day of interviewing the locals, typing up conclusions, and directing the researchers back at intelligence headquarters to dig up whatever they could find. Then, at the following day’s breakfast, Agent Romanoff announced that they needed to go to Belarus. 

“Less radiation?” Darcy couldn’t help but ask, and Agent Romanoff nodded and then picked up her tablet and left the table. 

Darcy expected that they would continue on in the two Jeeps they had rented, but was really pleased to see what had to be a Soviet Era Mystery Machine waiting for them - a flat front, expanded van painted dark military grey. She couldn’t help herself. “I’d like to be Daphne,” she said. “If no one objects.”

Agent Barton made a sound that might qualify as a laugh, and Darcy couldn’t help but smile a little further. “What?” Rise asked, turning to the German agents, who were both sniggering. “There is nothing wrong with being Velma.” 

The guards at the Belarussian border seemed a lot less impressed with their claims of being UN Investigators than the Ukrainian ones guarding the Zone of Exclusion around Chernobyl. After some back and forth with both Agent Romanoff and Rise,  
they ordered all of them out of the car at gunpoint. Darcy wished that that she could understand the conversation that was going on between the guards, Agent Romanoff, and Rise. She stood with her arms spread against the car and hoped that she wouldn’t go out in such a redshirt-like fashion. She also wished that she could ask something of Agent Barton, since he was spread eagle next to her, about whether this was normal in his experience and if the guards were just bored and decided it was time to tear a van apart, harass some international diplomats, and wave their guns around to feel like they were dangerous and important. 

Then one of the guards came quite close to her, waving a gun and making demands of her in Belarussian, or Russian, or... “I’m sorry, I don’t-”

“He wants to know what you do,” Agent Romanoff said, also splayed against the side of the van and looking a bit peeved for it. 

“I’m a policy analyst from America,” Darcy said. 

“He does not think you are old enough to have that kind of job,” Agent Romanoff said after the guard barked something else. She spoke back to him, a few curt exchanges, and Darcy did her best to keep her panic attack at bay as the other guard waving the gun got it closer and closer to her head. Rise was talking with another guard, and Darcy was relieved that she wasn’t the only one who was frightened - sweat was pouring down one of the German agent’s faces. 

She glanced over to see what Agent Barton was doing, and furrowed her brow when she saw him smiling at the hulking guard who had a gun to his head - the guard was at least six inches taller and a good fifty pounds heavier than Agent Barton.

“Oh, fuck it,” said Agent Romanoff, and even though they hadn’t rehearsed this exigency, Darcy knew that this meant for her to duck underneath the van. She hadn’t been tasked with carrying a concealed fire arm, so she decided, as she skittered for cover, that she would try and grab some ankles if the opportunity presented itself.

Whatever happened only took a few minutes - even though it was Agent Barton and Romanoff versus six guards. Darcy didn’t hear any gun shots, only the sounds of body parts making contact and the thud of the guards as they hit the ground, one after the other.

“We’re clear,” Agent Barton said, and Rise looked at Darcy with a wild grin on her face - making Darcy wonder if she’d legitimately been disappeared, or just wanted everyone to think this because she determined that what her career needed was more unpredictable violence in the workplace.

Darcy marveled at the unconscious guards and how Agent Romanoff was casually rubbing her palms against her black jeans, leaving dust marks behind. The Germans immediately began to help her and Agent Barton drag the bodies to the side of the road while Rise and Darcy watched.

“You have our coordinates mapped, right?” Agent Romanoff asked, glancing down at the neat row of guards they’d left at the side of the road.

“Yes,” Rise said. “We should only be forty-five minutes out.” She glanced around the tiny border crossing station. “You would think they would have security cameras.”

“It’s a minor border crossing,” Agent Romanoff said. 

“It happens,” said Agent Barton, and he looked...clearer, somehow. What did it say about him that kicking the shit out of some border agents put him in a better mood. “Not too many people coming over from the nuclear exclusion zone - they were bored, it’s why they were getting trigger happy.” 

“Good to know,” Darcy said. Certainly the corollary applied? She shook her head. She had known this was part of the package deal. Darcy just wished she could have watched all of the action from a perspective other than from under a car.

* * 

Belarus itself was a bit of a disappointment, and whatever they were looking for, it wasn’t there. Darcy wasn’t really informed about the investigation at that point, and she spent the next day and a half with the two German agents, teaching them how to say dirty things in English. 

“Suck it, dick stain,” one said when the rest of their entourage entered the shabby hotel room they were stuck in. Darcy was pleased to get a smile out of Agent Barton, but his face quickly went back to its normal, intense resting place. 

“We’re going to be headed back,” Rise said. “We’ve got as much as we can here, and it looks like the perpetrator is long gone.” 

Darcy resisted the urge to raise her hand. “Since it is a Friday, do you think it might be possible to stop off somewhere else in Europe for the weekend?” 

Agent Romanoff arched an eyebrow and looked at Agent Barton. “Where did you have in mind?” she asked, voice cool.

“Uh, I don’t know...” Darcy said, since she hadn’t given much thought to it. _Where are we near that is cool?_ “Uh, Budapest?”

“No,” said Agent Barton and Romanoff simultaneously, and then they looked at each other, a bit self-conscious.

“Right, OK,” Darcy said. 

“Why not drop us off in Berlin?” suggested one of the German agents. “We can show you much you would enjoy in the town.” They glanced at their three superiors.

“I haven’t been to Berlin in some time,” Agent Romanoff finally said, and Darcy smiled.

* *

“You should get checked out by an independent doctor,” Jane said, when Darcy finally made it back stateside and was able to meet her for coffee at the Starbucks outside of Stark Tower. “Just saying.” 

“Yeah...probably,” Darcy said. “But, what’s the worst that could happen? Wait, don’t answer that.”

“I, just...mutants? You were looking for mutants, weren’t you?” Darcy had only been able to mention where she had been, and not the probably wild-goose she had been on and the content of it - no gooses, mostly chase, a few overzealous border guards who got their heads bashed in.

Darcy shook her head. Jane sighed. “Well, I can tell you that I am working on a reconstruction of the Einsten-Rosenberg Bridge phenomena we observed that Thor categorized as the Bifrost. You can tell your superiors that - do you get paid by the hour?” 

“Salary,” Darcy said.

“I hope you got fucking hazard pay,” Jane replied.

“I’m going to check for it,” Darcy said. “Uh, do you think that’s wise?”

“Absolutely, you just went to one of the most irradiated places on the planet-”

“No, making one of those rainbow bridges?” Darcy said. She could only imagine what Jane would come up with, her powers combined with Stark and Banner.

“Well, I talked to Erik about it-”

“How is he?” Darcy asked.

“Not well,” Jane said, and frowned. “He feels very guilty. Especially since no one really knows him or how he was involved or blames him, so he feels like...I guess it’s weird, but like he’s not being held accountable.” She shrugged her shoulders. “He really didn’t want to talk about it, either, especially when I brought the Tesseract into it...”

“Well, yeah,” Darcy said.

“Still, this would be different, and more stable - possibly less evil.”

“Possibly?” Darcy asked.

“I am still working on that,” Jane said. “But stability, that’s the key, it-”

“You watch _The Walking Dead,_ right?” Darcy asked.

Jane wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, why?”

“Better topic, right now?” Darcy suggested. She was tempted to whip out her phone right then and report to Rise about the stable but possibly still evil worm holes, but decided against it. She could do it on the cab ride back to her apartment. The universe wouldn’t collapse in the next fifteen minutes...

 _Fuck,_ Darcy thought, because there was a time in her life, not long ago, when that would have been an actual metaphor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chernobyl setting inspired by this week's River Monsters, where Jeremy Wade goes to Chernobyl to fish (I have a strange love for River Monsters and that man...unf). The Soviet Era Mystery Machine is not mine, but appeared on an episode of Destination Truth, where they went to find ghosts in Chernobyl (it is also an excellent show, I used to watch it from 1-2am when I lived in England on some travel channel).


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it's been awhile. Apologies! End of the semester and then resulting hangover. But I'm back on it, though am feeling a little Joss'd by IM3. Oh well. I'm going to carry on as planned.

“So,” Darcy said to her human resources consultant, “let’s say that someone went on a classified mission to somewhere and they have some health concerns they would like to get checked out by an independent doctor...where might they go, for this second opinion?” Darcy did not want to go to her human resources consultant. Darcy suspected she suspected was a former agent who had got a hold of some critical information, then did something stupid, couldn’t be fire, and was shunted off to human resources to rot. But it was protocol. SHIELD was big on protocol.

“Our health services are more than adequate,” the human resources consultant replied. “You can have an examination with another doctor, but we prohibit you from discussing anything with outside doctors on any confidential work place matters.” The human resources consultant gave her a feral grin, and Darcy imagined her own life as a human resources consultant and smiled back.

“Well, thanks for your assistance,” she said. 

She waited until that evening and took the bus over to the nearest Panera to call Jane. “You remember what you said about the radiation?” she asked.

“Darcy, honestly, I’m sure that you’re fine,” Jane replied. “I was just being-”

“I have this rash,” Darcy began. Little known fact - she had a mild-moderate streak of hypochondria, inherited from her mother. “I have a rash and what if it starts to turn green and then-”

“Oh, fuck off,” Jane replied. “Why don’t you come over here. I’m sure Dr. Banner...”

Two hours later Darcy sat on a table in Dr. Banner’s lab at Stark Tower, kicking her legs back and forth and waiting for him to turn up. Jane was on a stool beside her, sort of circling around the room using her feet. This was why they got along. Darcy had known they would get along their second breakfast together when Jane had arranged her sausages and eggs to form a slightly frightening smiley face. 

“Hey, Bruce,” Jane said. Again, Dr. Banner had snuck up on Darcy - he appeared in the doorway holding three mugs by their handles. 

“Bruce?” Darcy whispered, even though she was pretty sure Dr. Banner could hear her.

“Shush,” Jane said, and accepted a mug of tea.

Darcy met Dr. Banner’s eyes for a moment and pressed her lips together, then took another mug. It had the MIT logo on it.

“Booo,” Jane said, and pointed at it. Dr. Banner nodded. 

“He threw out the Stanford one, you know,” he said to Jane.

She furrowed her brow. _This,_ Darcy thought, _is interesting._ Also something she should probably note to her superiors. A grudge-prank war amongst a bio-physicist/Hulk, astro-physicist, and whatever Tony Stark was probably wasn’t going to end well. “The tea is nice,” Darcy said. No one responded, so she took another sip and said, “I don’t, uh, drink tea as much as I should.” 

Dr. Banner nodded, and set his own mug down. “So, you’re been irradiated.” 

Darcy raised her eyebrows and glanced at Jane, who shrugged. “I don’t think there should be any consequences, other than, like...the standard ones. I hope. Sorry.”

“No, that’s...fair enough,” Dr. Banner said. “How did this happen?”

“I think that’s sort of above your pay grade?” Darcy said, and she winced, even though Dr. Banner smiled at her.

“No, like, you were in the vicinity of a bomb, you ingested something, accidental lab exposure-” Jane said, stopped, looked at Bruce, and frowned. “Sorry.”

“No, that’s...also fair enough.” He pressed his lips together. He was really cute. Darcy was relieved she was currently getting her rocks off with a hot Scandinavian, otherwise this exam, or whatever it was, would probably get really awkward. 

“Environmental,” she said. 

“Oh, fuck, Darce, did you have to go to Japan or something?” Jane asked.

“No, actually, that would have been worse-”

“Casual camping trip in Chernobyl,” Dr. Banner said, and it took Darcy a moment to realize it wasn’t a question. “You aren’t the first person to come to me with, uh, concerns.” 

“Oh,” Darcy said. She had pretty much forgot that Agent Barton and Agent Romanoff were part of the Avengers - and the possibility that they all might be friends with the science cohort. They might get drinks together. Or whatever adult people did when they were friends. Darcy was still figuring that out. “Yeah, that kind of happened.”

Jane arched an eyebrow. “That is a lot more interesting than Japan,” she said. “Were you looking for mutants, or-” she shrugged.

“Actually, I honestly have no idea,” Darcy said. She followed Dr. Banner’s movements as he opened a drawer and pulled out one of the wands that the first German used to swipe over her every evening back in sunny Pripyat. “I just kind of sat around and read stuff about...stuff? Oh, and I’ve got a rash.” She held her arm out, aware that this was probably not the best person to complain to about that.

“Have you changed detergents? Shower gels?” 

“Oh,” Darcy replied, and felt a little shamed. Dr. Banner pressed his lips together and nodded. 

“It doesn’t seem like there is any permanent exposure,” he said, when the wand failed to make any noises. “I can take some blood samples, though. Not like you took a bath in the cooling lakes, right?”

Darcy shook her head - she had showered, but she presumed that the water had come from...elsewhere. “There’s actually a hotel there,” she said.

“Oh God,” said Jane. 

“You’re OK with needles, right?” Dr. Banner asked, pulling some medical supplies out of his ass. _No,_ Darcy corrected herself, _he knew you were coming._

“Yeah, go for it,” she said, and put her hand into a fist.

When Dr. Banner was done getting samples, he nodded at both of them and then slunk out of the room. “He’s good at that,” Darcy said.

“Well, sure,” Jane replied. “Years spent on the run, hiding out...”

“Oh, shit, that got serious, huh?” Darcy asked. She glanced down at the bandage that Bruce had put on her elbow and smiled. He had used a cheap Iron Man bandage. 

“It did,” Jane said. She glanced at her watch. “It’s late. You should spend the night, instead of trying to get home.”

“Oh,” Darcy said. It was ten, which she didn’t think of as particularly late. She pulled out her work phone and scrolled through her e-mails - there wasn’t anything that seemed particularly urgent. “I suppose so - I mean, usually I’m up and about a lot later and...” 

She looked at Jane and saw those wide, yearning eyes Jane was able to do without drifting into deliberate puppy dog eye territory. “Well, I don’t have to work tomorrow,” she said. “Day off given all the hours I put in on our adventure, so, yes. As long as we can get a proper breakfast tomorrow.”

“Like that’s an issue,” Jane said. “Mmm. French toast.”

“Waffles,” Darcy replied. “But we’ve done this before. So, uh, you got a sleeping bag?” 

“Ha,” Jane replied. “I have a guest room.”

“You have a guest room?” Darcy asked, as Jane grabbed her forearm to get her to slide off the table. 

“For when I have guests,” Jane replied, as though this wasn’t obvious. 

The guest bedroom’s bed was probably the size of Darcy’s bedroom in her apartment, and the mattress felt like heaven. “I’m never leaving,” she said to Jane.

“I know, right?” Jane asked, and flopped down next to Darcy, wiggling up until her feet were planted firmly on the mattress. “I bet it’s made out of children, or something, so I know better than to ask.”

“Oh, God,” Darcy said, tilting her head. “There’s a guest bathroom.”

“No, actually, it’s just got two doors - there’s a word for that, like, when you have kids or something...it has a rain forest shower! And an orgy bath tub.” Jane grinned at Darcy.

“Jane Foster, are you propositioning me?” Darcy asked - she was mostly kidding. And the part that wasn’t was aware that Jane did not swing that way, or, if she did, she was oblivious to it. 

“Hmmm,” Jane said, and began to blush. Definitely oblivious. “Maybe when you’re less rashy and radioactive.” 

“Low blow, Foster,” Darcy said. 

“We can get pizza and watch a stupid movie?” Jane suggested. Darcy nodded.

* *

Jane furrowed her brow when there was a knock on her door. “It’s probably the pizza,” Darcy said, sipping her beer.

“Right, but they’re not allowed to come up here, with the security, so-”

“You’re not beating each other with pillows in your underwear, right?” Jane rolled her eyes, and it took Darcy a minute to realize that Tony Stark was on the other side of the door.

“You can come in only as long as you have our pizza,” Jane replied. 

The door opened, and Darcy did her best to look...dignified, or something, given that she was wearing a t-shirt that was probably stolen from either Dr. Banner or Stark and her underwear. “Hello,” she said.

“Bruce said you were here because you’re concerned you glow in the dark,” Stark said, like this happened all the time - hell, maybe it did, maybe there was good reason for Jane to have a guest bedroom. “That’s my shirt I gave to Bruce.”

“Hahahaha,” Jane said, standing up and heading for the fridge. “Must have got mixed up in the laundry.”

“Jane, you don’t fool anyone,” Darcy replied. “They probably know by now you have a klepto thing with men’s clothes.” 

Jane handed a beer to Stark, who opened it using her counter top. Well, his counter top. “My mom and dad are still married and everything too, I don’t know,” Jane said, running her hand through her hair. 

“And I suppose you two will be watching some shitty rom-com-”

“Well, there does seem to be quite the selection on the server,” Darcy said.

At the same time, Jane said, “No, _Four Weddings and a Funeral._ ”

“One of my favorite movies!” Stark said. He opened her cupboard and pulled out three plates.

“Where’s Pepper tonight?” Jane asked, accepting a plate. Darcy felt like she was watching a tennis match. 

“I want to say Cologne,” Tony said. “But Milan is also possible. That’s where they accomplish things in Italy, right, Milan?”

“Shouldn’t we invite Bruce? Darcy, what is that face for?”

“Oh, God, you’re not my mom,” Darcy said. “Second, you guys totally have this super-secret phD’s only club, don’t you? Because none of you were in a fraternity. World domination is only a few weeks out.” 

“Are you asking in your official capacity as a SHIELD intelligence mole or an unofficial capacity as a concerned friend who might just be a little jealous?” Jane asked, putting her hands on her hips.

* *

“See?” Jane said, hours later, laying on her back on Darcy’s bed while they scrolled through the list of movies available on Stark’s system looking for the most ridiculous porn they could find. Though, Darcy supposed now she’d eaten pizza with the man while he was in his pajamas and watched rom-coms with him, it was possible she could get away with calling him Tony. He had told her to. And especially since she was looking through his porn collection. “I told you everything was going well. Also, I’ve never really had...like, science friends, all of the other physicists always got their twats in a twist over having some woman in the lab who got published more than they did and-”

“Twats in a twist is a really good turn of phrase,” Darcy said. “All of this is so sadly vanilla. You’d think, with the reputation-”

“I know, right?” Jane asked. “Unless the kinky stuff is hidden - JARVIS, is the kinky stuff hidden?”

“I’ve been instructed to claim ignorance on this matter, Dr. Foster,” came the cool English response. 

“Hidden,” Jane replied, and sighed.

“Did your date with the Canadian guy not get anywhere?” Darcy asked. Jane huffed. No, then. “Look, I’m not the best person to have girl talk with. I’ve never had much success-”

“I know, I know,” Jane said. “It’s why we get along.” 

“You’re drunk, aren’t you?” Darcy asked. She should have known when Jane decided to browse for porn. Sometimes it was hard to tell, though. 

“Sort of,” Jane said. “Do I mind if I sleep on the other side of this massive bed tonight? Since we’re having a slumber party and all?” 

“No prob,” Darcy replied. _Most do better re: care and feeding of Jane Foster,_ she thought.

* *

The next week was uneventful, other than the stack of paperwork, briefs, and diligence that was threatening to bury her every time Darcy did so much as move a pen on her desk. She met Jane for dinner and a movie. Then Jane went to Toronto with Bruce and Tony for a science conference/fraternity field trip. So Darcy had drinks with her co-workers. She went to home to her apartment and did not do her laundry. She almost - almost - forgot she was working at a top secret, international military-intelligence organization or had watched _Bridget Jones_ with Tony Stark.

This period in her life was short lived.

“Agent Lewis?” 

It had been a long night, with two drafts due in the morning, so Darcy felt she could be forgiven for looking up and shrieking when she saw who was standing her doorway. 

She thought she pulled herself together pretty well, though. “Sir?” 

Agent Phil Coulson, looking a little worse for wear, nodded at her. She understood this to mean that she should get up and follow him. “Sir,” she asked, once they rounded a corner, “I’m not dead, am I?”

“Hardly,” he replied. She nodded and tried to pull her hair back into a better looking bun as they walked. He didn’t offer anything else, so she just followed - until she realized they were headed for the helipad. 

“This is just going to keep happening, isn’t it?” she asked. Then she said, “Sir.”

“Dr. Foster’s disappeared,” Agent Coulson replied, opening the door to the helipad. A helicopter was waiting for them. 

“Fuck,” Darcy said. Then, “Sorry, sir.”

“It’s an appropriate reaction, Agent Lewis,” he said, and gestured for her to head towards the helicopter. “We will need to work with us both as her close friend, to help understand what may have happened, and as an agent.” He paused as she climbed into the helicopter, a little more graceful this time. “This is a matter of utmost priority.” 

“How did it happen?” she asked, once they were both situated and had their ear muffs on. She could only imagine - there were plenty of people who probably wanted to figure out how to travel the rainbow bridge to Asgard, not to mention her general genius capabilities and ransom opportunities given her connection to-

“We’re not entirely sure,” said Agent Coulson. 

“She was in Toronto with Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner,” Darcy said, even though Agent Coulson probably knew this. She wondered if he had any super powers, having risen from the dead. 

“They were there,” said Agent Coulson. “The Canadians are none to happy about the destruction at Yonge and Dundas. We’re just lucky Dr. Banner was still in his hotel. We’ll be taking a Quinjet from the Helicarrier.” 

“Was anyone else-”

“Stark wasn’t on the scene either. He and Banner are looking at the remains of some of the weaponry they left behind. We’ve got one of the perpetrators, but he isn’t being cooperative.”

“Weapons - is it more aliens? Asgardians?” Darcy asked. 

“It doesn’t appear so,” Agent Coulson replied. “But that has yet to be determined.” 

They were silent the rest of the flight, and Darcy looked at the tension in the other agent’s face. She wondered how long he’d been undead for. Not that all of SHIELD needed to get an announcement. 

And Jane - she was plucky, sure, but possible alien/interdimensional kidnapping? How the fuck did they plan on finding her? Unless there was something she didn’t know. For the first time, Darcy hoped that there might be something she didn’t know.

The Quinjet was waiting for them right next to the helipad, and Darcy reached for her bag before she realized she hadn’t packed anything. “It’s been taken care of,” Agent Coulson said. He walked ahead of her towards the plane this time, and she struggled a bit to keep up. She hated when men did that, even though they knew that the woman trailing behind them was wearing heels because it was part of their uniform.

She stepped in and was not surprised to see Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton sitting the cockpit of the Quinjet. She gave a brief head nod and got nothing in return, but she supposed everyone needed to have their professional faces on. 

“Agent Lewis, have you met Captain Rogers?” Darcy raised her eyebrows and turned in the direction of Agent Coulson and...yes, in the flesh, Captain America. He wasn’t wearing the outfit, at least. Though he was just as attractive in a dark leather jacket and button down shirt. 

“No, sir,” Darcy said, and extended her hand first. “Captain, Agent Lewis.”

“Very nice to meet you, uh, ma’am,” he said, meeting her eyes. Just as advertised, Darcy thought. That was the jaw of a super hero. 

“Agent Lewis works with us in intelligence,” Agent Coulson said. “She was previously Dr. Foster’s intern in New Mexico.”

“Ah,” said Captain Rogers.

“Tasered Thor,” Agent Romanoff said from the cockpit.

“Oh,” said Captain Rogers. Darcy nodded her head briefly. 

“Take a seat, Agent Lewis,” said Agent Coulson, gesturing towards the seat next to the Captain. Darcy was a bit relieved - sitting next to him, not the easiest position to be in, but better than sitting across from him and having to avert her gaze every ten seconds. 

She strapped herself and kept her eyes face forward. She remembered him from the film reels, of course, and her best friend in fifth grade had ripped some pictures of him out of a library book and pasted them in a journal. Darcy pressed her lips together. 

“Have long have you been with SHIELD?” Captain Rogers asked her once they took off.

“Oh, about half a year, now,” Darcy said. Captain Rogers pursed his lips, as though confused. Darcy understood. She should still be sitting in a basement somewhere. “A lot has happened since then, I guess.” 

“Fair enough,” said Captain Rogers, and that was all anyone said until they were close to Toronto. 

“Stark hasn’t seen the type of weapons that were left anywhere,” Agent Coulson said. Darcy presumed he had heard over the comm in his ear. “And we haven’t been able to get much out of our...guest. Dr. Selvig’s en route from New Mexico.”  
“Oh,” Darcy said, and the winced a bit when she realized she’d said that aloud. She hadn’t seen Selvig since the New York invasion. 

“Calling out the full cavalry for this one, Coulson?” Agent Barton asked, not turning his head. 

“Dr. Foster’s work is of incredible interest to a lot of people,” Agent Coulson replied. “Many of whom we would prefer not have any sort of access to it.” 

“You’re referring to her work on trans-dimensional-” Captain Rogers began.

“Rainbow bridge,” Agent Barton interrupted. Darcy resisted the urge to smile. She was glad he was saying things. Sort of funny things. She really shouldn’t be invested in someone that she only sort of knew - and mostly through work, and then mostly through traipsing around a nuclear contaminated zone.

“Asgard,” Agent Romanoff added. “And any of the other nine realms, if they exist.” 

“Everything else Thor said proved correct,” Darcy added. Even if he had betrayed Jane - her words, not Darcy’s - she still felt a little defensive. He’d died to save her life.

“Yes,” Agent Romanoff replied.

Darcy clutched at the shoulder straps of the Quinjet as it landed, taking a hard ninety degree turn to fit onto the helicopter pad of what had to be SHIELD’s Toronto office. Another foreign country to tick off the list, she thought, but then realized she’d been to Manitoba before. She hadn’t even realized, when she had told everyone she had only been out of the country to Israel. _Proof of the hypothesis that everyone thinks Canada is just an offshoot of the U.S._ Darcy thought, and undid her seatbelt to stand.

She wobbled slightly because she forgot she was wearing her heels, and blushed when Captain Rogers caught her arm to steady her. His hand was firm and... “Thank you,” she said.

“Sure,” he replied. She sort of expected him to say something like _shucks!_ How was it that someone who looked like he did was completely oblivious? 

“Whoa, hey, who knew that missing physicists motivated the whole cavalry getting called in? Hello, Agent Lewis,” Tony said, greeting them on the roof once the helicopter blades had slowed. “Agent - they finally let you out of the hospital?” 

“Try not to send him back there,” Agent Barton replied, narrowing his eyes at Tony.

 _Oh,_ Darcy thought. _We’re still in the team building phase, huh? Awesome._ “Mr. Stark,” Darcy said, since he had addressed her. 

“Please, Tony. We’ve got a command center thing set up, Agent, I managed the whole thing myself,” Tony said, and Darcy followed behind the rest of them. “We’ll get you some better shoes, Agent Lewis.” 

“I’d appreciate that,” Darcy replied. At least someone noticed - she was a little surprised it was Tony Stark, but then, she’d take what she could get.

They had taken over a conference room, and there were three junior Canadian agents typing furiously on a computer when they all entered. None of them managed to not look surprised at the entrance of the rest of the earthly Avengers, but they regained their countenance fairly quickly. 

“Let’s get the security camera footage up on the screen,” Agent Coulson said.

Darcy sat down in the first chair, separating herself from the junior agents - hoping that she wasn’t going to end up stuck at a table for this one. This was her Jane, after all. 

It took Darcy a moment to zero in on Jane in the square because of her size. She was doing the fairly standard tourist thing, glancing around and not paying too much attention to her surroundings. Darcy tried to analyze with a critical eye - it didn’t take long for her to pick out Jane’s abductors. They had the square well surrounded, and three began to triangulate on her so that there was no way for her to escape.

When it happened, it happened quickly - they were definitely organized, which made things a lot more difficult. Darcy pressed her lips together and could feel her nostrils flare as one of the goons grabbed Jane and quickly shoved her into the car while the rest began to randomly shoot around the square to create a scene. She felt herself snarl, slightly, as the car moved out of the camera’s view.

When she looked away from the screen she found that Agent Barton was looking at her rather intently, but when she met his gaze, he looked down. “How many civilians?” Captain Rogers asked.

“Six are injured, but they’re in stable condition at hospital,” one of the junior agents replied. 

“They weren’t aiming to hit anyone,” Agent Romanoff said. “It almost looked like the one that was detained by police wanted to get caught.” 

“He has not been forthcoming so far,” said the second junior agent. Agent Barton seemed to roll his eyes. Darcy smiled, slightly.

“Where is Dr. Banner?” asked Captain Rogers.

“He was a little...” Tony began, and then winced slightly. “He needed to go somewhere and hit some bongo drums.” 

Darcy couldn’t help but notice the fear that flashed across Agent Romanoff’s eyes, but she was able to bury it quickly. Darcy didn’t have the security level to find out everything that had happened on the Helicarrier, but it seemed apparent that Agent Romanoff had a bit of a show down with the Hulk. Darcy couldn’t blame her for reacting like that. 

“So, what’s the plan from her?” Captain Rogers asked. 

“I would like Mr. Stark, Dr. Banner, and Dr. Selvig to go under cover at the conference,” Agent Coulson said. “It’s possible that whoever was interested in Dr. Foster has other interests...Agent Lewis, I’d like you to accompany them.”

Tony Stark widened his eyes at her, clearly amused. “You can pull off graduate student, definitely, we’ll have to get you into something more comfortable.” 

_Too bad I couldn’t pack my own stuff,_ Darcy thought.

They wound up being able to approximate the look reasonably well - jeans, button down shirt, Converse, cardigan that was two sizes too big. She took her contacts out and put her glasses on. _Professional mindset,_ she thought to herself as they entered the area where the conference was being held.

“Dr. Selvig,” she said, identifying him first even though he had lost a considerable chunk of weight and was more pale than she remembered. 

“Oh, Darcy,” he said. He looked like he was going to hug her, so Darcy made the move first. It was probably slightly less awkward that way. 

“Darcy’s our graduate assistant,” Tony said. Darcy glanced over at the use of her first name.

“But you don’t know anything about-”

“Anyone asks, I’ll just talk about how much coffee I drink and how I hate grading undergrad papers - er, assignments,” Darcy said. Bruce shrugged his shoulders, and for the first time, Selvig noticed him. Dr. Banner had to go undercover and was wearing a fairly ridiculous brown wig, contacts, and someone had done some contouring on his nose to make it look different. 

“Dr. Banner..?” 

“Hello, Eric,” Bruce said, and shoved his hands in the pockets of his pants.

 _Hello, dumbass!_ Darcy thought, because of course Bruce Banner was the guy that Eric knew who got caught up with SHIELD and was never heard from again. She stepped aside to give them some room as Tony arched an eyeball. As the two engaged in the most awkward hand shake ever, Tony leaned over and whispered, “So, do you think they fucked?”

“Uh...” Darcy said. “I’m really not sure how to even begin answering that.” Tony just grinned at her as Dr. Banner moved back from Eric. 

“Let’s see if we can find some evil genius with a plot for world domination,” Tony said. 

As it turned out, Jane was right with the way that she categorized the vast majority of other physicists. Tony Stark couldn’t go undercover, so they all sort of stood to the side as he schmoozed with people, said he would look at their proposals/C.V.s/article/flashy invitation, whatever, smiling the whole time. There was unease there, likely related to his experience with a Mandarin. Darcy dutifully followed along, trying to find the other people her age and talking to them about whatever it was they wanted to complain about.

“I don’t think this is very fruitful,” she said to Dr. Banner at one point as he itched his head. “Did they braid your hair to put that in?”

He narrowed his eyes. “How would you know that?”

“Years of watching _Top Model_ ,” Darcy replied. “Well, before it sucked - I never knew about weaves, before then, and wigs, it was a real learning experience. Oh! Free food!”

“As a graduate student you should probably be right on top of that,” Dr. Banner replied. 

Darcy nodded. There was coffee as well, and she quickly filled up a cup and then grabbed at the little sandwiches that were on other. “You’re working with Dr. Selvig?” 

She glanced up and smiled at a reasonably attractive guy, a little on the shorter side, but it wasn’t like Darcy needed to make that a qualification. She straightened her posture to emphasize her assets. 

“Yes,” she said, and held out her hand while glancing at his name tag to make sure she didn’t claim to be from the same institution. “Abbie Solomon, nice to meet you.” She fumbled with her beverage and sandwich, extending a hand.

“Josh,” he said, and nodded down at his name tag. “I didn’t realize he had taken anyone on. I put an application in but they said he was taking a break from research...”

“Oh,” Darcy said - brainwashing will do that to you - “well, I just started. Maybe a different process.”

“Maybe,” Josh said. “I didn’t know UC Berkeley was a hot bed for budding astrophysicists.” 

“Ah,” Darcy said. “Well. I was really drawn into the, uh, string theory...” This came from her reading of the US News rankings, which she had figured a bunch of status obsessed nerds would rely on just as much as her college friends had slobbered over them as they applied to law schools.

“Oh,” Josh said. “I can see how that would relate.” He pressed his lips together. Darcy had been told by Selvig that string theory was related to his and Jane’s work.

“Broadening my horizons,” Darcy said. “Haha.” 

Josh cocked his head and nodded. “So you’re doing research on quantum temporal...” Darcy nodded as he continued, reached for another small sandwich so she could shove it in her mouth.

“Lot of late nights,” she said. “Coffee.” She nodded down at her coffee cup.

“I’m surprised, you know, given New York, he’s not locked away in some top secret government office.”

“Yeah, you know, NSA. Sneaky fuckers,” Darcy said. Josh nodded.

A friend came by, David, and there was some talk about how much they hated their undergraduates and whether they would have to go to the keynote speech later and if any of them had seen Tony Stark. “Do you think he’s hot?” David asked.

“I don’t do goatees,” Darcy replied, grinning at Josh and the sad amount of fuzz that had taken residence on his face seemingly out of pity. He grinned back at her. 

“Guy saves the world by nuking a bunch of aliens,” Josh said. “Can you believe that? No one kicks up any shit about that. How’s that for first contact?”

“Not ideal,” David said.

“Plus, I apply for all this grant money, am this close to getting in with Jane Foster-” Josh used his fingers to demonstrate a very small difference, “-and then the rich fucker snaps her up to work for him. Wonder what he’s up to.” _Seriously?_ Darcy thought, _the first student who approaches me? Way too easy._

“Who knows,” Darcy said. _This is enough to be suspicious, right? At least under the Patriot Act - and SHIELD probably isn’t even under that._

“We should get out of here and just go get a drink,” Josh said, eyeing her breasts. _Good work, ladies,_ Darcy thought. 

“Yeah,” Darcy said, pulling out her phone. “Let me just text my friend...” _Weird graduate student who is butt hurt he didn’t get to work with Selvig and Jane and wants to take me for a drink..._ She hit send, 

_Better than anyone the science trio has encountered yet_ came the reply from the secure SHIELD number, and Darcy sort of hoped they’d pulled Rise away from wherever they had sent her this week. She did better when she had something familiar to hold onto. She also wondered who was going to get the job of tracking them down and waiting outside the bar.

She ordered bottled beer and was careful to hold onto them, conscious that the if the two were up to nefarious things they might try to rophie her. Hell, they might try to roophie her just to get in her pants. Darcy had learned her lesson from college.

It took two drinks before Josh got back on the topic of Selvig and the aliens. “This is the thing - everyone goes on and on about the Avengers are heroes. But they’re not the heroes I asked for.” 

Darcy nodded at this and grinned. David looked uneasy. _I am so going to get to bring these fuckers in,_ she thought. She fiddled with her purse and texted the prearranged letters, then moved her gun so that it was easier to grab. She pulled out a chapstick and applied it. “You can never find anything in these damn things,” she said, and nudged her drink with her elbow so it spilled. “Fuck, sorry,” she said, dabbing it with a napkin. “What kind of heroes do you want?”

“Planet is so fucked up,” Josh said. “Maybe that Loki dude had the right idea. What do you think, Darcy?” _Uh, so obvious,_ she thought.

“Yeah,” she said, and met his eye and smiled slightly. He put his hand on her arm and held it tight. “Hey, what’s up with-”

“Just come outside with me,” he said. “There’s something you might be interested in.” She felt a gun press against her back and sighed. _Though technically, this is kidnapping,_ she thought.

She walked outside, babbling softly that she would do whatever he wanted. “Really, honestly, I’m not...like, I’ll help you out, I really don’t-”

“Don’t make a scene,” David said, suddenly a little more confident now that they had achieved their objective.

“OK, OK,” Darcy said. They had taken her from the sidewalk into a back alley that connected to a hotel. Darcy inhaled. Someone had to have followed her, even if it was just one of the lackeys-

She grinned when David turned and tried to glance down at what had hit him in the neck. “The fuck..?” he asked, before crumpling to the ground.

Darcy decided it would be best not to make a move on Josh in case she inadvertently got neck darted herself - and she had to appreciate the method. Nothing like a good, old fashioned neck darting. “Dumb ass,” she said, instead.

Josh pulled her around so that she would act like a shield and shot his gun in the general direction of a roof top. Darcy rolled her eyes and held her position until his grip on her loosened and he fell to the ground as well.

She pulled her gun out of her purse just in case and assessed the perimeter, moving so her back was against one of the walls and she was facing the two wayward graduate students. 

She couldn’t hide her grin when Agent Barton landed almost soundlessly beside her. “That was pretty good,” he said.

“Well, not like I was dealing with...” she waved her hand. “They don’t even have biceps.” _Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ she told herself, because of course her eyes had drifted towards Agent Barton’s own magnificent biceps. This was the trouble with working with super heroes.

“Hopefully they’ll be a little bit more talkative,” he said. Darcy nodded.


	5. Chapter 5

“So you want me to just sit and listen for anything...based on what I know about Jane?” Darcy asked Agent Coulson, who nodded at her. “I don’t really think I’m qualified-”

“Just listen, Agent Lewis,” Agent Coulson said, and nodded as Agent Romanoff entered the room where the lead graduate student was seated. _Little cocksucker,_ Darcy thought. 

They’d quickly found out that his real name was Brian Anton Kasmirczki because, before his career in evil, he’d applied to be a substitute teacher in New York. Agent Coulson had just shook his head and looked at Darcy, as though she was supposed to explain why her generation was so stupid. 

“Well, it’s good to see certain things don’t go out of style,” said Josh, now Brian, when Agent Romanoff entered. 

“Mmm,” Agent Romanoff mused. She was wearing her catsuit, which she had unzipped to just the position where it revealed the maximum amount of cleavage without appearing overtly sexual. “Tell me, Brian, at what point did you think that you were going to succeed with this ploy of yours?” 

His face fell at this, and Darcy had to grin. _I knew the moment you introduced yourself,_ she thought. _I am a better spy._ Though, if she was judging herself against that guy - not the highest of standards. 

“And yet you didn’t see us come for-”

“Us?” Agent Romanoff cocked her head, as though this was a consequential detail and something that he had inadvertently revealed. She sat down across from him and glanced at the large glass of water next to him. “Drink?”

“I know that trick,” he said. “I watch _Law and Order_.” 

“Good taste,” Agent Romanoff replied. “I like to watch it in my down time.” 

Darcy watched as it went back and forth like this, Brian Kasmirczki making some statement and Agent Romanoff acting as though he had revealed some critical piece of information to her, all the while emphasizing her breasts and flirting with him.

_Oh,_ Darcy thought. _Am I supposed to be learning about how to emphasize my feminine wiles?_ She glanced down at her tits and frowned. She was pretty sure Agent Coulson was trying to get at something more profound. She hoped - she didn’t think you could sue SHIELD for sexual harassment. 

“Is this supposed to be some kind of interrogation?” Brian Kasmirczki asked, after fifteen minutes, leaning back in his chair. 

“Oh, it is,” Agent Romanoff replied. “But you’ve told me everything that I needed, already.” She smiled at him, stood, and left. 

She walked right by Darcy and Agent Coulson and towards the bathroom. Darcy turned and looked at Agent Coulson, and then couldn’t come up with anything intelligent to say. She felt as though she was supposed to get it - and, like a lot of things with SHIELD, was fairly certain that if you didn’t, they sent you to Manitoba. Or to work in HR.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t think...we didn’t learn anything, did we?” 

“He certainly thinks we did,” Agent Coulson replied, and nodded his head into the interrogation room. Brian was shifting in his seat, eyeing the glass of water and then the ceiling. He tugged at his shirt, reached in his pocket - probably for cigarettes - and then sighed.

“We know he knows something,” Darcy replied. “Ah.” Agent Coulson nodded at her. “And he’ll blurt it out because he thinks we already know.” 

“It doesn’t hurt that he’s an idiot,” Agent Romanoff said, returning from the bathroom. 

Darcy nodded, understanding that the dig was meant at Brian and not at her. Still, she adjusted her skirt as Agent Romanoff walked by her in that skin tight suit. It was hard not to feel self conscious under the best of circumstances. 

“You think they want a portal to Asgard to get Loki?” Agent Romanoff asked, and it took Darcy a moment to realize that she was speaking to her.  
 “Well...he did seem to think Loki was somehow misunderstood,” Darcy replied. “Or had the right idea.” Agent Romanoff exhaled out her nose.

“But the work that Dr. Foster is doing - is it guaranteed that the Einstein-Rosenberg bridge would connect to Asgard? Or would it merely connect to...anywhere? Somewhere?” 

“Well,” Darcy said, and she fumbled for a moment because _not her speciality_ , though she supposed that she knew more from nine months with Jane than most people, “I believe the idea is that there is a way that you could plot the destination just as the Bifrost allows you to chose which of the realms you want to end up in - she was plotting the stars in New Mexico, before Thor showed up, because there was a lot of activity in a particular region - so I suppose that’s Asgard, since it was sort of their thruway?” She winced. “Jane published a thing on it with a lot of symbols and...I took that away from it, at least.” 

Like most pieces of quantitative research, she had merely read the conclusion.

Agent Romanoff nodded. “Do we have anything from our other guest?” Agent Coulson shook his head.

Darcy watched for another ten minutes as Agent Romanoff worked to increasingly unnerve Brian - though she kept glancing over at Agent Coulson, wondering if there was something more that she was supposed to take from this.

“You do know how highly improbable it is that you will be able to locate Asgard, even with Dr. Foster, right?”

“Who said anything about Asgard?” Brian said, but Darcy could see it in his face. _Oh, I get it,_ she thought. _This is the experiential learning portion._

“Not to mention,” Agent Romanoff said, leaning back and crossing her arms, “I highly doubt that Loki would take you on, even as his minion.” 

“I figured you wouldn’t understand,” Brian replied.

“No, you’re right, your plan is genius.” Darcy had to grin at the sarcasm in Agent Romanoff’s voice. She watched Brian for a long period of time, then she stood up and left. 

“He doesn’t know very much at all,” Darcy said. “He’s too low level.” 

“Yes,” Agent Coulson said, and nodded at Darcy to continuie.

“Because he would have revealed more to prove he has a bigger dick than - I mean, um, to show that he’s better than you?” Darcy asked. Agent Romanoff cocked her head, though the gesture seemed to be towards Agent Coulson - something along the lines of, _well, maybe you weren’t wrong to disappear this one._

“Do you want me to try the other individual?” Agent Romanoff asked, and Agent Coulson appeared to consider this. 

Darcy scrunched her eyes shut - she felt the beginning of a headache coming on, and it was almost as though some kind of static electricity was dancing along the hairs of her arm. “Oh,” she said, and then had to smile slightly when the window to their left was lit by lightening and a loud thunderclap followed. “Well, that changes things.”

“About time,” Agent Romanoff said. Darcy concurred - and, if Thor was able to pop in when Jane was in peril, why hadn’t he turned up when she was talking about a bag of dicks he was? 

“On the roof?” Agent Coulson asked, pressing a hand to his ear to best hear the response as another loud thunderclap surrounded them. “We will be right there.”

* * 

“Heimdall told me that the Lady Jane has been abducted,” Thor said when they met him on the roof. Darcy pressed her lips together when she saw him - his hair was longer, and braided, and, yeah...bag of dicks, sure, but in a very nice looking package.

“Yeah, about five hours ago,” Tony said. “What took you so long?” 

“I began my travels as soon as I found out,” Thor replied. “Though the All Father has speculated that time behaves differently when one uses the Tesseract to travel between realms.”

Tony and Dr. Banner both got a look on their face that indicated that they had begun to calculate this. “How long have you been in Asgard for?” Darcy asked. 

“Sixty Asgardian days,” Thor replied. “How much time has passed in your realm since I left with Loki?”

“Ooh, six, seven months,” Darcy replied. Thor frowned at this, and Tony and Dr. Banner’s expressions both made it seem that their brains hurt.

“We should get Thor updated on the situation,” Agent Romanoff said. 

“I came as soon as I was able,” Thor said, primarily to Darcy, though his voice did tend to carry. It wasn’t just deep, and well enunciated, but he was also very, very tall. 

“I’m sure you did,” Darcy said. There was no reason not to believe that Thor was speaking the truth, especially when it came to timey-wimey stuff. Hell, if the Doctor couldn’t keep it straight-

“I should have been more aware of the deviations,” Thor said. “But I was so overcome with what needed to be done with Loki...”

“Yeeah,” Darcy said, as they stopped at the conference room. “About that.” 

Thor was not happy to hear that Jane had been kidnapped by a group of people who had decided that his younger brother was merely misunderstood - _hey, what’s a little genocide amongst friends?_ Darcy thought. He assured them that Loki was in the most secure prison amongst the nine realms, and would remain for many years to come.

“I still do not understand why they seek to summon my brother,” Thor said.

“They seem to think that he would make a benevolent overlord,” Bruce said.

Thor furrowed his brow. “That makes little sense.”

“Unfortunately, people have a tendency to be attracted to men like him,” Captain Rogers said, and he glanced off into the distance for a moment before sighing.

“They seem to lack an understanding of Jane’s work, though,” Thor replied. “She was working to create our Bifrost - it would not enable one to reach from Midgard to take who they liked from Asgard. The best they could hope for would be travel to Asgard themselves...” He shook his head. Darcy could only imagine what the Warriors Three and Thor would do to someone who turned up in Asgard looking for Loki. 

“I told you it was an incredibly stupid plan,” Tony said to Dr. Banner.

“I’m not convinced that’s the ultimate ploy,” Dr. Banner said, carefully. “I mean, the minion might think so-”

“I’m not the only one who thinks we’re going up against the guy in _Despicable Me,_ am I?” Stark asked. Darcy shook her head. She had immediately gone to that as soon as minion was used. Stark grinned at her.

“I am not familiar with whom you speak,” Thor said.

“No, I don’t imagine they’ve got distribution rights in Asgard,” Tony replied. 

“It’s a movie,” Agent Barton said - the first time he’d spoke since Thor arrived. Darcy looked at him and noticed that he had been picking at his fingernails. Understandably so - it seemed, at least to her, that he’d just begun to recover from Loki. 

“I see,” said Thor. “You were saying something, Banner?”

“Oh, well,” Dr. Banner said. “It just seems too easy.”

“Of course it is,” said Agent Romanoff, and Agent Barton rolled his eyes. Darcy widened her own eyes, slightly. She knew what team she was supposed to play on, but that team had sent her to Chernobyl and then really hadn’t done much to assure her she wasn’t negatively irradiated. Also, she had not watched rom coms in her pajamas with any members of that team. 

“Dr. Banner?” Thor asked, narrowing his eyes at Agent Romanoff. Darcy resisted the urge to sigh. 

“Well,” he said, removing his glasses. “We know that they have access to all the research Ja-Dr. Foster has published so far, which includes the paper she published post-New York about the events observed in New Mexico once, the ah...well. They don’t need her for that.”

“Presumably her research since then-” Agent Barton began.

“Actually, we’ve been collaborating on something a bit different...” Dr. Banner said, pressing his lips together. “She, uh, didn’t want to...well.” He glanced at Thor and grimaced. “That’s what we were presenting today, which they’d know...I mean, Dr. Foster is brilliant and...but I’m willing to bet they were trying to get you to appear.” He nodded at Thor.

Darcy glanced around the room. Made sense to her, and she was going to go from Agent Coulson’s and Tony’s immediate reactions, which indicated that it was probably right. Or on the right track.

“I will be of no use to such foes,” Thor said, and reached for Mjolnir just in case anyone was unclear. 

“No,” Bruce said. “I mean, they wanted some kind of...manifestation, of travel, between the realms...either to fill in the information from Dr. Foster’s older work, or to get something else.” 

“What about Loki?” Captain Rogers asked. He was blinking a little more than normal. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Bruce said. “I mean, sure, why not? There aren’t too many other batshit world icons, these days...” He glanced over at Tony, who rolled his eyes. 

“Everyone could say thank you for that more often, you know,” he said. “I didn’t notice any of you turning up to help-” 

“If I recall, Stark, you refused our offer of assistance-” Agent Romanoff replied. 

“Well, to be fair, I didn’t really need it, but-”

“If your intuition is sound,” Thor said, basically talking over the others to Bruce, “then it is of concern to me because Jane serves as a means to an end, and may be mistreated. I wish to speak with this minion you have in custody.” 

“I’m not entirely sure-” Agent Romanoff began, but a slight smile appeared on Agent Coulson’s face.

“Agent Lewis, would you like to assist?” he asked. Agent Barton furrowed his brow, but Agent Romanoff looked at him like she understood the motives. If there were motives. At this point, it was possible it could just be shits and giggles, the way that their current intelligence gathering enterprise was going. 

“Certainly,” Darcy said. “I can show you where the minion is, Thor.”

“You have joined the legion of the black suits?” Thor asked. “Even though they stole your prized device-”

“Ah, well,” Darcy said. “It’s complicated?” 

“I hope it has nothing to do with the assistance you rendered me,” Thor replied, and then frowned when Darcy looked away. “But surely since Midgard has become aware of the existence of realms beyond-”

“It’s cool,” Darcy said. “Great health care plan. Free coffee.” 

“If I recall, this coffee beverage was not highly valued,” Thor said. “Selvig assured me we paid one pittance of a price for numerous servings.”

“Oh,” Darcy said. “It’s sort of a joke? Here he is.” 

“He is puny,” Thor said.

“Yes,” Darcy replied. “But let’s not squash him, yeah? Just yet...” He did, after all, try to kidnap her. And was somehow involved in kidnapping Jane.

Thor forced the door open with his foot - Darcy was pretty sure that Jane had taught him how to open a variety of doors, so this was probably just for dramatic effect. Darcy trailed in behind Thor, who, instead of sitting, just loomed over Brian the Minion. “Pray, mortal,” he said, “tell me what you have done with the Lady Jane Foster.” 

“That’s Thor,” Darcy said, almost whispering, and she pointed, for effect. 

“I, uh, well-”

Darcy reached into her pocket and pulled out her iPhone. “I’ve GPS on here, don’t worry,” she said, and smiled. 

* *

Darcy pressed her lips together when Captain Rogers sat down next to her on the Quinjet as they prepared to fly to Saskatchewan, which was where the minion said Jane was being held - or had been told to tell them Jane was being held. Darcy had to give the villains credit, for location, because she never would have guessed that, even with her experience at SHIELD Manitoba.

“That was pretty, uh, effective,” he said, and it took Darcy a moment to realize he was speaking to her. 

“All Thor,” Darcy replied.

“No, well, the part where you tossed the phone at him, that was good,” Captain Rogers said. 

“Though he had pissed himself before that,” Tony said, from across the aisle. Dr. Banner elbowed him, and he furrowed his brow and narrowed his eyes at him. 

“What, you get to jab me with pointy objects but..?” Dr. Banner asked. 

“The pissing probably was all Thor,” Darcy replied. 

“Well,” Captain Rogers said. “Yes, probably.” 

They were interrupted by Agent Coulson. “It’s very likely,” he said, “as Agent Romanoff noted, that where we are headed is serving merely as a diversion to lure us all to central location. Everyone will need to be on high alert - Dr. Banner, I’d like you to remain back until needed, along with Agent Lewis-” _Ah, isn’t that nice,_ Darcy thought. _Bless him._


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All science in this chapter (and the proceeding ones, but especially this one) is the product of Wikipedia research, the occasional science focused NPR broadcast I catch, and...that's about it. Though it's possible this is the same amount of research that went into most MCU canon science. Still - I didn't even take high school physics.

“So,” Darcy said to Dr. Banner as everyone else headed out of the Quinjet, battle ready. “Your feed is alright?”

“Mmm,” he said, touching the small device in his ear. Darcy nodded over towards the video feed. Both monitors were in the cockpit.

“So this is probably blatantly a set-up, and everyone knows that,” she said. “But we’re going to go in and smash people around under the belief that we’ll manage to get the upper hand?” 

“I suppose so,” Dr. Banner said. “Though, uh, not so much smashing, yet.”

“Admittedly a bad word choice,” Darcy said, and winced at him slightly.

“It’s all right,” he said. “It...uh, well, it happens.” He shrugged his shoulders. Darcy nodded her head. She was pretty sure, given the circumstances, she wouldn’t be as well adjusted. “Not really dressed for the occasion, either,” he said. He looked at his pants and sighed. Darcy wondered how, with all of the geniuses on hand, SHIELD hadn’t figured out how to make some super-stretchy polymer. There had to be commercial applications there as well. 

Although, that would mitigate the potentially demoralizing effects of Hulk peen on most villains. 

“Those weapons,” Dr. Banner said, and he pointed at the display at the group of minions headed out of their prairie bunker, “we weren’t able to figure them out - not that we had a lot of time.” 

Captain Rogers was shouting directions as the Avengers arranged themselves for battle. Though whole thing didn’t appear especially challenging. This worried Darcy. Either Jane had been kidnapped by incredibly stupid people - who were likely to do stupid things to her - or they had something really surprising up their sleeves. Neither was a great option.

They watched as one of the weapons was discharged, the blast deflected by Captain Rogers’ SHIELD. He flung it at the offending minion and it ricocheted back to him. He caught it easily. 

Dr. Banner furrowed his brow. Darcy thought he was trying to figure out how Captain Rogers managed that trick until he zoomed in on one of the weapons.

“I wonder if they’re...” Dr. Banner held his hand out. It took Darcy a moment to realize he expected her to have made provisions for this - apparently part of her job description was general assistant to any nearby Avenger.

She didn’t huff or sigh. She pulled out the pen she always kept in her bag and handed it to him. He grabbed for some paper and began to write in what appeared to be a different language. 

A red light flashed at her, and Darcy accepted the new feed. The screen split so that the battle was on half and a backdrop that looked like another Quinjet was on the other. There wasn’t anyone in the frame, and Darcy was about to turn it off when she heard a voice. “Daaaarcy...” came Rise’s voice, and Darcy exhaled. She was relieved - she suddenly felt a lot more grounded.

Rise was soon in the frame, and it became clear that they were likely in transit. Darcy hoped that it meant she was on her way. “Rise, glad to see you, you will not believe-”

“Look, I’ve got some info on your baddies, so pay attention,” she said. “Part of it seems to be they want some energy source, like the Tesseract, for their weapons. Seems like their leader’s recently increased membership tenfold by deciding Loki is their patron god/maniac/whatever, but there’s another angle behind them wanting the trans-dimensional travel that we can’t get a handle on yet.”

“Right, great,” Darcy said, and the stream flipped off. She realized, then, that she was charged with relaying this information. She inhaled, then pressed the button on her com. “Agent Lewis, just spoke with Agent Friesen in intelligence. They want to duplicate the tesseract for weaponry purposes. Leader’s used the Loki angle for recruitment.”

“That would explain why we couldn’t get a handle on what was going on with those laser guns,” Dr. Banner said, and he crumpled up the piece of paper he’d been writing on. “The energy source is incomplete.”

“They want Dr. Foster to make them a Tesseract?” Captain Rogers asked as he caught his shield again.

“Theoretically she could establish a long-term, stable breach-” Dr. Banner said. “But there would have to be some...to make it traversable-” He shook his head again and reached for another piece of paper.

“Quantum foam,” Tony replied, as he blasted away a soldier that was about to strike Natasha. “Dark matter, or-”

“No, I think the mass isn’t the problem but more the instigation of-”

“Less science, more blasting-” Agent Barton said. Darcy couldn’t see him on the feed but arrows would often fly into view and hit one of the minions.

“Where’s the diversion, anyway?” Agent Romanoff asked.

“Good question,” said Captain Rogers. Darcy glanced over at Dr. Banner, who was better equipped to answer that question. 

“Probably that,” said Agent Barton. The view on the camera changed and Darcy saw some of the armed minions driving a vehicle that looked like a tank crossed with a canon. 

“A large weapon for a puny people,” Thor said.

Dr. Banner figured it out before anyone else did, and Darcy saw his mouth open and eyes widen. “No! Don’t!” he said, but he hadn’t pressed his communication device on.

“Thor-” Darcy began, pressing the button, but it was too late. Thor had conjured a bolt of lighting from Mjolnir and aimed it straight at the device. Darcy closed her eyes for a moment and winced.

What should have happened - as explained, later, by Dr. Banner and Tony - was that the blast of cosmic lighting should have been enough to charge the device so that it achieved the level of power the HYDRA weapons had. The resulting blast would have aimed straight at Thor, taking him out for a good period of time. The rest of the Avengers would be even more vulnerable.

It was sort of successful. Except instead of flying backwards from the blast, Thor was surrounded by a wave of energy and then he disappeared with an audible popping sound. Presumably, if Darcy remembered correctly from high school, the air filling in the space where he had vacated.

Even the minion soldiers were shocked by this, and after a moment where everyone paused the Avengers were quickly able to take advantage of their apparent disarray. They were all tagged and bagged, as Agent Barton put it, within the next ten minutes. 

Darcy just watched, her mouth sort of open, frantically typing to Rise and some of the other SHIELD agents to try and figure out what the fuck had happened to Thor. Dr. Banner seemed to work best when he didn’t have a lot of outside interference, and he was furiously doing calculations and furrowing his brow. At one point, he put his thumb in the mouth and sort of worked his teeth against it, but stopped when he saw Darcy noticing.

_It wasn’t just the reverse of what was supposed to happen (I think),_ she wrote to Rise.

_Yes, well, if your physicist can’t figure it out ours certainly isn’t going to, I have it on good word he’s only half as brilliant-_

Then red light blinked at her, indicating a new video feed was coming in. A box flashed up on her screen indicating it was from un unsecured channel. “Agent Coulson, permission to accept?”

“Tag it,” Agent Coulson said. 

“They’re not hiding their location,” one of the techies en route with Rise chimed in. “It’s in...it’s outside of Yakuskt.”

“Замечательно,” said Agent Romanoff. 

“Accept,” Agent Coulson said. 

Darcy pressed the button and also flicked a switch so the communication would come over everyone’s audio feed. “Oh, hey, Darcy,” said Jane, smiling at her. Thor was in the background, swinging his hammer at some black suited operative with a massive gun. “Didn’t expect you on the other end!” 

“Oh,” Dr. Banner said, and then put his head in his hands. He started to laugh, a little.

“Don’t worry, Bruce, I’m sure you were distracted by all of the action,” Jane said. She sounded a little high strung, but that was probably normal after ten or twelve hours being held captive by Loki-worshipping, HYDRA-admiring assholes with bad taste in base locations. “Thor, was that the last one?”

“A few more are hidden over yonder, Lady Jane,” Thor replied, and turned towards the camera and narrowed his eyes. “Please let the rest of the Avengers know that I am well, though a little startled from the experience.”

“Sure,” Jane said, and giggled. “Um, how long do you think it will take you guys to get out here?” 

“Hold on,” Darcy said. 

“We’ll have to refuel,” said the technie. “Then, six and a half hours, depending on the wind?”*

“Six and a half hours,” Darcy said. “You’ll be OK?”

“Yeah, this isn’t, like, their major command base, though - but I’ve got Thor here, so, you know, they send more goons-” Jane said.

“They are minions, I believe,” Thor said, and Jane burst out laughing. 

“We’ll be here,” she said. Her grin widened - she was going to need some Xanax or something, Darcy decided. She made a note to check with Agent Coulson on that. “Foster out.” The screen darkened.

“Someone want to explain to us idiots what the fuck just happened?” Agent Barton asked.

“We’ll debrief in an hour,” Agent Coulson replied. “Until then, we need to guard the prisoners, begin cataloguing the weaponry, and I need to get a clean-up team in here to deal with this.” 

* *

An hour was enough time for everything to get set in motion for Phase II/III: - depending on how you classified things - Rescue. Darcy found that while you could say a lot of things about SHIELD, they were really fucking efficient. 

The Quinjet Rise arrived in was the largest model. The crew she brought in, aside from the medic, the pilot, and the senior techie, were quickly assigned to dealing with the minions and cleaning up and securing the scene. The Avengers, Agent Coulson and Darcy, got on Rise’s plane and took off quickly after refueling.

Once they’d reached cruising altitude the medic immediately got started on a large gash Agent Romanoff had. “I’ll get to you next, Agent Barton-”

“Uh, I can handle that, actually,” Dr. Banner said, looking at the long but shallow gash Agent Barton had. “You have an extra kit?” The medic nodded in a way a lot of people at SHIELD tended to with Dr. Banner - as if disagreeing with him would make him angry. 

Darcy sighed ever so slightly and just watched. “Well, at least we’re fairly low on casualties,” Tony said. “Aside from the, uh, teleportation, but, does that count?”

“Cap’s got some bullet holes,” Agent Barton said, watching as Dr. Banner inserted a needle into his leg. 

“Just in the shoulder,” Captain Rogers said, smiling amiably. “I’ll be fine.” 

“I can bandage that,” Agent Coulson said. Captain Rogers waved his hand.  
“No, it will stop bleeding shortly. Went straight through. Won’t take to long to heal.” He seemed to almost be enjoying himself. Darcy wondered if his endorphins had gone a little wacky because of the serum - it made sense, after all, you wanted your super soldier to be able to fight through a lot of pain.

“Let’s debrief,” said Agent Coulson. 

“Can I start, Agent?” Tony asked. He nodded, closing his eyes to express exasperation. “So, basically, Dr. Foster must have figured that our friends out there were trying to piss off Thor in order to use Mjolnir’s cosmic energy as an animating force in order to jump start the particle emission-”

“No,” Agent Romanoff said, loudly. 

“English,” said Agent Barton. Tony looked at Dr. Banner, who looked up from Agent Barton’s leg.

“Uh, so,” Dr. Banner said, voice soft. “Dr. Foster knew, uh, that they were looking to use Mjolnir’s lighting - apparently they’d bet on it being not, sort of not earth lighting, but more...space-y, since the hammer-”

“Forged in a dying star,” Darcy added, hoping to be helpful. She remembered that from the book.

“Sure, I’m sure,” Dr. Banner said. “So, she must have guessed they were attempting to recreate the uh, sort of Tesseract energy, to animate the weapon-”

“Like HYDRA weapons,” Captain Rogers said.

“Or Phase II,” said Tony. “Who remembers that?”

“Tony,” Dr. Banner said, in what could only be described as a stern professor voice, and Tony shut his mouth. “So I suppose she bet on them having, uh, the mass part of things figured out but when they made her conform the calculations to set off the interior of the weapon she made it into a single direction wormhole instead, with the path back to the source - so, instead of the end product of what we’ve been looking at, more of the beginning? She made it into the tesseract, sort of, just a smaller, single only-”

“One way ticket-” Tony interjected.

“Yes,” Dr. Banner said.

“HYDRA weapons were shooting off little wormholes?” Captain Rogers asked. Dr. Banner considered this for a moment, then nodded. This seemed to disquiet him. He glanced over at Tony, who had his lips pressed together. They both nodded at each other - clearly, there was much science to be done and both of them were disconcerted about the perceived outcome. Darcy probably would have been, too, if she had actually taken physics outside of high school. 

“It was very adroit, on her part,” Agent Romanoff said. “She knew she’d get Thor to her location, and if any one of us could be guaranteed to take out a whole installation...” 

“That was their big trap, though?” Agent Barton asked. “It seems too easy - get Thor to use hammer against cannon, get-”

“Weelll...” said Rise, and everyone seemed to notice she was in the corner seat for the first time. “The weapon was probably the first step, right? If the bad guys have learned anything from New York, it’s take out the super heroes, then initiate wider plan.” 

“Involving Loki,” Tony said.

Rise shrugged. “Possibly, but that could just be a recruitment ploy - appeal to the disillusioned young men who were never quite popular, always in their older brothers shadows, it’s a pretty common narrative, actually, for radicalism...uh, but what’s interesting is they seem to have an understanding of HYDRA technology and I don’t think it would be too far a leap to point out that the Nazis really had a thing for Norse mythology...”

“I thought Captain Awesome wiped out HYDRA,” Tony said. 

“It’s very difficult to destroy every element of a ideological group that’s achieved that sort of mass,” Rise said. “Some of our intelligence indicates that...some operatives thought that several high members of HYDRA may have reintegrated into the SS, particularly into the science ranks-”

“And we brought a bunch of them to the U.S. to fiddle around with nuclear energy, amongst other things,” Dr. Banner said, and he sighed and shook his head. He closed the stitches he was making on Agent Barton, and Rise nodded at him. 

“Nice work, doc,” Agent Barton said, as Dr. Banner pulled back from his leg. “Very clean.” Darcy wasn’t sure exactly why he made the aside, but he likely had a reason. 

“I’m actually not that kind of doctor,” Dr. Banner said.

“You were practicing medicine in Kolkata-” Agent Barton replied, and looked at Agent Romanoff, who shrugged.

“I’m trained in field medicine,” she said. Agent Barton shook his head. After being able to shoot a bunch of people, he seemed to be in better spirits.

“That’s as much as we know, for now,” Agent Coulson said. “Stark, if you don’t mind assisting Agent Wexler with hacking into the files in Yakutsk-” The techie, Wexler, looked up from where he had been hiding in the corner and tried to look composed rather than gleeful.

Darcy knew the feeling.

“Sure,” Tony said. “But can there be food, before? Maybe a beer - a beer, Captain, it won’t impair me, I could settle down a bit, you know-”

“Oh, speaking of,” Darcy said, before she forgot. “We have, uh, provisions for Dr. Foster, right?” She hoped that Agent Coulson understood - but, when he nodded, she could only wonder why she had questioned his perceptive capabilities. 

“Well, after six hours with Goldilocks, she might be in better spirits,” Tony said. “More important - snacks for us.”

Darcy smiled and looked at the techie, who was the other junior agent present. She certainly wasn’t going to dole out the snacks herself because she was a woman. 

“I don’t believe we stock alcohol,” Agent Coulson said. “Coke, yes.” 

“Ever better,” Tony said. Dr. Banner shook his head. 

When Darcy brought the snacks over to Captain Rogers, he appeared a bit pale - the adrenaline, it would seem, had worn off. The hole in his shoulder was now bumpy, ragged scar tissue. 

He smiled at her when she handed him two cans of SHIELD High Calorie meal replacement, a Coke, and a large bag of pretzels.

“You did a really good job, Agent Lewis,” he said. “That was your first combat situation, wasn’t it?” 

“Oh, um, sort of,” Darcy said, remembering how she had hid under the van at the Ukrainian border. “But I didn’t do anything, really-”

“You kept a cool head,” Captain Rogers said. “A lot of people don’t.” 

“Yeah, well,” Darcy said. She felt herself blush as he gave her a soft smile. The man was probably able to impregnate women with the right smile. “Thanks. I’m, uh, going to go over here for a little bit, maybe take a nap?”

“I should to,” he said, drinking one of his canned calorie meals. “Something tells me we’re not done with all of this.” 

Darcy nodded and walked over to where Rise had buckled herself in. She was reading something on her tablet with keen interest and chewing on her lower lip. She was really good, Darcy realized - not that she hadn’t known it, but it suddenly clicked with the deference that Agent Coulson had given her, in explaining things. _Does that make me good too?_ Darcy wondered, since Rise seemed to think her work was...well, she could use Darcy’s work. Which - she usually did good work, or, at least, most of her professors seemed to think so.

Darcy sat down next to her and gave her a weak smile. Rise looked up from her tablet and grinned. 

“I think Captain America has a little crush on you,” Rise said.

“Haha, hilarious,” Darcy replied. “There’s that Danish sense of humor.”

“No, really,” said Rise. “He looked over when you weren’t looking.” 

“Rise,” Darcy hissed. “Now is not the time to...this isn’t high school.”

“You’re saying that because you like him,” Rise replied. They were all cracking, Darcy realized. She took a sip of her Diet Coke. 

“He has super hearing, you know,” Darcy said, lowering her voice. She glanced over at Captain Rogers, and was relieved to see he had put some headphones on as he ate the bag of pretzels. _Maybe that’s not even enough, though,_ she thought. 

“OK, fine,” Rise said. “I could help with this, but if you don’t want it-”

“Oh, God,” Darcy said. “He likes...I mean, Peggy Carter, you read about her - she probably did punch Hitler.” 

“I’m reading about her right now, actually,” Rise said. “SHIELD was formed, in part, to track down some of the HYDRA agents suspected of getting amnesty in the U.S.” She arched an eyebrow and slid her tablet over, showing Darcy a picture.

Darcy already knew. Peggy Carter was ridiculously beautiful in the way that people didn’t seem to be anymore, especially in her crisp uniform, hair rolled perfectly as she stood looking off into the horizon. Darcy sighed. She couldn’t even imagine.

“You think you’re going to find your missing piece in the archives?” Darcy asked, already reaching for her own tablet. Rise shrugged her shoulders. 

“I have a feeling it’s somewhere,” she said. 

* * 

“You know,” Darcy overheard Agent Barton say to Agent Romanoff when she went to go make some coffee for herself and Rise, “Stark is right. Foster is either going to be sedate or completely bonkers.” 

Darcy ripped open the packet of coffee and poured it into the filter. They were about an hour out, and she had only taken an unplanned two hour nap, face first in her tablet. 

“Just because you have neck darts doesn’t mean you get to use them,” Agent Romanoff replied. There was something really...human going on between them, Darcy realized, both seemed relaxed. 

They turned when she put some water in, and she gave a weak wave. She felt bad for interrupting. Or like she was intruding. “Coffee?” she said. 

Agent Romanoff nodded, her jaw immediately falling back into the firm set. “Thank you, Agent Lewis,” she said. Agent Barton was still smiling, though. Darcy wondered if they had made an agreement where only one of them was allowed to be personable at a given time. She shook her head - she definitely had a monstrous headache coming on. It would be one of those mental hangovers like she used to get after finals - the kind you couldn’t even kill with alcohol. 

“What do you think?” Agent Barton asked. “After all, you’re here as our Dr. Foster expert.” 

“Uh,” Darcy said. “A lot of that, you know, came from being her friend...” She trailed off, remembering how Agent Coulson had framed her role. She wondered if it included speculating on whether Jane was going to ride Thor’s thunder cock for hours or not. Probably. The man was nothing if not thorough. “She was pretty upset, when he just left with Loki and didn’t even make contact with her,” Darcy said. “But she also seemed a little stressed, and, uh...” she winced, slightly. “Jane tends to forget her, um, conclusions about certain things when she’s stressed.” 

Agent Romanoff arched an eyebrow and glanced at Agent Barton, who was smiling slightly. 

“Do you really have neck darts?” Darcy asked, figuring she should get something for offering up so much of her friend. Possibly best friend - and hey, who would have guessed that after graduating college Darcy Lewis would be best friends with a world famous astrophysicist and a top-secret spy?

“No,” said Agent Romanoff.

“Yes,” said Agent Barton. He grinned at her. Darcy nodded and poured two mugs of coffee and handed them to the agents, then got two more for herself and Rise. “Denmark over there seems pretty intent.”

“Well,” Darcy replied. “Yes.” She understood, she thought - you’re part of an organization that has super heroes at its disposal, that interacts with some of the most brilliant people on the planet, and what, exactly, is your job? “I should probably get back to help her with that.” She took the mugs of coffee and headed back over to where Rise was sitting. 

“I also have Matan looking through things,” Rise said. “And we are getting information in the system in Saskatchewan.” 

“OK, so where do you want me?” Darcy asked. 

“I’m not sure,” Rise replied. It was the first time that Darcy had seen her looking legitimately frazzled. Her hair was in a messy side bun and she looked younger than she was. “Look into that firm that sponsored some of Jane’s research at Stanford?”

“You got it,” Darcy said. She was only ten minutes when Rise touched her knee. Darcy looked up and met Captain Rogers eyes - he was standing next to Agent Barton, but had been looking over in her direction. He held eye contact with her for a minute and then looked away. Rise smiled. 

Darcy shook her head. Nothing Darcy said was going to make a difference on this one - and sure, yes, Captain America, who wouldn’t tap that? But it seemed kind of disingenuous, like she was taking advantage of someone. 

“We’re half an hour out,” Agent Coulson said. “No new reports from Dr. Foster since we checked in halfway through the flight, so we can assume everything is stable.”

“Hopefully Thor will have pants on,” Tony said. “No, wait, I take that back, I can’t be the only one wondering what he’s packing...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *internet research indicates actual flight time would be closer to eight/nine hours, but I figured that if the Quinjet can get from wherever the Helicarrier was to Munich in...a few minutes, then I should shave some time off.


	7. Chapter 7

Thor greeted them on the landing strip next to the underground bunker in Yakutsk. “He looks quite majestic, doesn’t he, with his cape billowing in the wind?” Rise asked. She had cracked, at some point, Darcy realized - she had a sort of goofy smile on their face. They were all nearing their breaking points, probably - well, except for the super soldiers and other modified individuals. Though Darcy was not positive if the Hulk prevented one from acting cracky because you were tired and strung out or just physical damage. 

“No capes,” Darcy said, and Rise smiled at her. “Oh, shit,” she said, disembarking - the air was frigid and also wet. “Capes,” she said, carefully taking the steps. “Capes are good.” 

“Lady Darcy!” Thor said, and the big grin on his face seemed to suggest that he and Jane had at least reconciled. He wrapped her in a hug. Darcy sighed and stared at his arm muscles. “I am in a debt to you for the care you provided the Lady Jane in my absence.”

“Oh,” Darcy said, and was aware that everyone’s eyes were on her and Thor - though, really, why? She had made first contact with him, after all. In more ways than one. “Well, that’s what friends do, though, thank you, I guess-”

“If you are hungry,” Thor said to the wider assembled group, “we have found many delicacies that come in alluring, shiny pouches.” 

“Well that’s good,” Tony said. “We don’t need to worry about any little demigods, then.” Thor furrowed his brow and shrugged his shoulders, then led their descent into the barracks.

“The minions are in here,” he said, gesturing towards a row of cells. They all stared back, many of them doing their best not to be intrigued or impressed by the appearance of the Avengers. “I desired to bind and gag them, but the Lady Jane said this would interfere with the Lady Geneva’s rules.” 

This statement was met with silence, and Darcy understood how it went - she, Selvig, and Jane had struggled with Thor’s All Speak initially, as well, but once you realized he was basically talking through a version of Google translate synced to the fourteenth century it got a little easier.

Also! A chance to utilize her political science degree. “Geneva Convention, I think,” she said.

“Ah,” said Rise, Tony, and possibly someone else.

“Oh, hello!” said Jane, popping up from under one of the desks in the evil scientist’s lab. Her hair was in a bit of a disarray and she had some oil like substance smudged onto her cheek, but she didn’t look any worse for wear. 

Darcy could see it in her eyes, though, it was the look she got when she had stayed up for two days straight trying to get a paper ready for a conference or when her calculations just would not come out. Her pupils were just a little too wide, and she wasn’t blinking as much as she should. “Thanks for coming to my rescue.” 

“That was some impressive work,” Dr. Banner said, immediately. “I know that we’d discussed how we might be able to solve the initial hurdle of providing an energy source to stabilize a one directional worm hole but to get the coordinates so precise-”

“Well,” Jane said, and she looked at Thor and narrowed her eyes. “I figured, you know, it was important to get it right.” Darcy turned to see Thor give her a bemused, sort of embarrassed smile. Darcy got it - Thor was a really nice looking guy. She was just a little miffed that after all of the support, and girls nights, and everything else, Jane seemed to forgive him as soon as he appeared. Even if it had been to avenge her capture. 

“So you were able to solve the problem we were having calibrating the mass-”

“We do need to debrief you, Dr. Foster,” Agent Coulson interrupted. “It’s imperative we locate the leader of this-”

“Yeah, he split before everything went down,” Jane said, and shrugged her shoulders. “He and his chief evil henchwoman, I imagine, and that was nice, you know, some fucking gender equality in evil...” 

“I noted sleeping quarters as I ascertained whether there were any stray minions,” Thor said. “Perhaps a rest might do you good, Lady Jane? And then we can both relate our tales to the Son of Coul.” 

“OK,” Jane said. 

Darcy waited for some joke about how Thor had really located the beds, but everyone just looked at the departing couple a little awkwardly. Then Agent Coulson spoke before anyone - well, Tony Stark - got a chance to say something. “We need to sweep the perimeter, and we need to interview each one of the captives. I think that’s a task for Agent Romanov, Agent Friesen, and myself.” 

Rise arched an eyebrow at Agent Coulson, who nodded. Darcy smiled at Rise - she wasn’t sure if Rise wanted to do this part of intelligence, but it was certainly a sign of some faith. Even if there really wasn’t anyone else around who was qualified. 

“Agent Barton, Agent Lewis - let’s start taking pictures and cataloguing what’s in the lab, work with Dr. Banner and Captain Rogers on that. Agent Wexler, you and Mr. Stark can keep up with the computers. Even if we’ve located Dr. Foster, there’s no indication the immediate threat level has been downgraded.”

“Sir,” said Captain Rogers, and then he glanced around the room when he realized he was the only one. 

“I’m not sure how much help I will be,” he added once Agent Coulson left and Darcy, Dr. Banner, and Agent Barton approached the first of the large machines in the lab.

“You’re familiar with HYDRA weapons, their technology, Captain,” Dr. Banner said. “That’s more than the rest of us.”

Darcy nodded, pulling out her tablet - she was really only qualified to serve as stenographer, here. 

“But you said they haven’t succeeded in recreating a Tesseract like power system,” Captain Rogers said, furrowing his brow. 

“Still, they’re likely inspired by HYDRA tech,” Agent Barton said, crossing his arms and staring at the first machine. 

“So...some of it survived the war, then?” Captain Rogers asked. Agent Barton glanced at Dr. Banner, who sighed.

“A good deal of it, I think - I encountered some in the DOD, at least, when I was...well,” he said, and scratched at the back of his head. “I’m sure the Russians probably got a hold of a good portion of it, considering they were the ones to invade Germany.” 

“And we got some, along with some of their scientists,” Steve said. He shook his head. “Everyone said we won, you know.” 

Darcy typed on her tablet - _suggest Captain Rogers take history course at local university._ It would probably help to learn about all of the various bullshit in the twentieth century alongside undergraduates who would be equally enraged about hearing it for the first time. And it wasn’t like Captain Rogers looked implausibly older than most of them - he could be any other Army officer pursuing their degree following a tour. 

“Does this look familiar?” Agent Barton asked, kicking his boot at a machine. It looked, to Darcy, like a sort of power generator - albeit a useless one.

Captain Rogers shook his head. “No, but I mostly familiar with the weapons,” he said.

“Tag this A1,” Agent Barton said, and Darcy took a snapshot of it on the tablet and logged the name, as she had been taught in one of her SHIELD Agent 101 classes. “Write unknown, potential power source, not likely weapon.” 

They got through about three quarters of the various machines, weapons fragments, and the corollary of the canon-thing that Jane had used to zap Thor across the Pacific Ocean when Agent Coulson re-entered the room. “Only one of our captives has proven to have any useful information,” he said. “Agent Romanov is speaking with him now. Any updates?” 

“I’ve got JARVIS running some deep de-coding on their system,” said Tony. “But they’ve got a very good computer nerd - sorry, Wexler - for them, at least, this stuff is well hidden and sophisticated.”

“The code is actually really interesting-” Agent Wexler began, but stopped when Tony shook his head at him. 

“We don’t have much,” Agent Barton said. 

“That’s because they’re idiots,” said Dr. Foster. Everyone turned, surprised that she had snuck up on them. Darcy noticed, for the first time, that her clothes were a little torn and there was a bruise on her face. Darcy frowned, and also felt a rise of anger - she would fuck up however decided to manhandle Jane. “I mean it, I’m being serious, they might have a good hacker but they don’t appear to be that sophisticated of an operation.” 

“That should be relieving,” Dr. Banner said, “But if they are idiots and they’ve got this far-”

“Well, not really idiots,” Tony said. “More like...science nerds that got a little disgruntled, or something, joined a Loki-cult. You know how it goes.” 

Dr. Banner pressed his lips together and looked down - Darcy was surprised. Tony was usually a lot better at being sensitive towards that kind of thing. She supposed that they were all sort of disintegrating. Which probably wasn’t great, given that a lot of them had some kind of super powers.

“That strikes me as accurate,” Jane said. “One of them kept ranting about how his paper didn’t get published but mine did even though - what, Darcy?”

Darcy thought it was about the right time to say it. “Just, you know, how you got miffed that SHIELD wanted to make sure that the three of your weren’t going to go all evil scientist and try and take over the world...” She punctuated with a shrug.

“An excellent point,” Agent Coulson said. _A feather in my cap!_ Darcy thought. 

Jane glanced over at Tony, then nodded. “Fine. Can I do anything to help?”

“We’re trying to classify these objects-” Agent Barton said, then immediately glanced to the doorway. “Agent Friesen?” 

Rise was standing in the far doorway, looking a little weary. “They’re a front,” she said. “Loki-worshipping cult of maligned science nerds. The guy Agent Romanov is questioning put it a different way, of course, but they’re just a protective layer around the real bad guys.” Darcy was pretty sure Rise hadn’t got a good nights sleep in some time. The bags under her eyes were really pronounced. 

“That’s what we figured,” Tony said. Rise gave him a leveling look that was the equivalent of a snarl.

“She’s still working on him?” Agent Barton asked.

“Mostly staring, at this point,” Rise replied. Agent Barton looked concerned - apparently that wasn’t one of Natasha’s more successful techniques. 

“What about yours?” Agent Barton asked.

“Took a cyanide caplet,” Rise said, and sighed.

“That’s a HYDRA trademark,” Captain Rogers added. This statement was allowed to sink in, perhaps appropriately, before Agent Coulson spoke.

“We’ll take all of them back to the Helicarrier, along with anyone of particular interest,” Agent Coulson said.

“Right,” Agent Barton said, glancing over the lab. 

“It’s a little unclear, what any of this does...” Dr. Banner said. 

“Make your best estimate,” Agent Coulson said. 

They began to pack up anything that Dr. Banner and Tony thought they had a good chance of figuring out once on the Helicarrier. It took another hour and a half, so Darcy was exhausted and fumbled as she buckled herself into the Quinjet - the coffee was finally draining from her system, and it wasn’t going to do any good to try and add more. 

“It’s going to be another six or seven hour flight,” Captain Rogers said, and she startled, her eyes opening wide. He was buckling in, having chosen to sit down next to her. If he was awkward as he seemed so far, Darcy was taking this as proof that he probably didn’t like her.

“That’s good,” she said. “That’s a decent amount of sleep. As much as I got in college.”

“Where did you go?” he asked. _It’s kind of funny,_ she thought, _having a sort of normal conversation with a guy in that outfit._

“Culver,” she said. “For political science.” 

“Dr. Banner taught there, right? Before..?”

“Yeah,” Darcy replied. There were a lot of weird rumors around school of where Dr. Banner had disappeared off to, from him getting taken out on a mob hit to him eloping with some gorgeous woman and foregoing his career as a physicist. Not one person suggested he was the hulk. She wondered what people would think when that came out - would it make sense, knowing who Bruce used to be? Or was it just some bad, freak consequence? “That was before my time, though.”

Steve nodded. “I took some art classes,” he said. “But I’d like to take some other classes, I think.” Darcy smiled, remembering the recommendation she had made on her tablet. 

“I actually like school,” she said. “I know, I know-”

“No, it’s...I spent a lot of time reading, when I was younger,” Captain Rogers said. “But I didn’t go to school all that much.” Darcy nodded, not really sure what to say to that. “I hope that wouldn’t implicate my ability to go to college-”

“I think they make exceptions for national icons and heros,” Darcy replied. “Some admissions codicil. Plus Tony can just make you some fake whatevers.”

“Tony?” Captain Rogers asked, and it took Darcy a moment to realize he wasn’t questioning his ability but rather Darcy’s use of his first name.

“I’ve, uh, been hanging out with Jane a lot and...” she shrugged, not sure how to explain it. _Oh, yeah, me and Tony Stark? Billionaire super hero inventor guy? We’re on a first name basis. I drank beer and had pizza with him._ It just sounded utterly preposterous and smug. 

“Oh, right,” Captain Rogers said. “Making sure they don’t go all evil genius on us.” Darcy nodded. “That’s important.”

“Yeah.”  
 “Though I’m not really sure how you do that...”

“Make sure the coffee pot is always full,” Darcy said. Captain Rogers smiled at this. 

“I should stop yammering on,” he said. “Let you get some rest.” 

Later, as they disembarked onto the Helicarrier, Rise grabbed her arm. “I told you,” she said.

“I think he’s just nice,” Darcy said, doing her best to keep her voice down. “And nice guys never like me - there is definitely a rule for that. Just irredeemable douche bags.”

“You just think that because you just got out of college,” Rise replied. 

“Men become nice after college?” Darcy asked. “Wait, how would you - you went to college in Denmark.”

“We call it University there,” Rise replied.

“This is one of those atolls they did nuclear testing on, isn’t it?” Tony asked, interrupting their conversation, when he saw that the Helicarrier was attached to the island. 

“This is the island where the Helicarrier is when it is stationary,” Agent Romanoff replied. “There is also a base here.” 

“SHIELD has an island?” Dr. Banner asked, and he winced, slightly. 

Darcy inhaled the salty air and resisted the urge to pull off her suit jacket to get some sun on herself.

“I think everyone could use some rest,” Agent Coulson said.

“Slept in the plane-” Tony began, but Agent Coulson shook his head.

“Non-transitory rest,” he said. “Agent Barton, Agent Romanoff, can you show everyone to their quarters? You’ll have to double up, unfortunately.”

“I call Bruce,” Tony said, and reached over and grabbed his wrist. Agent Barton arched an eyebrow, then began to walk towards the docking bay so that they could enter the island’s facilities. 

“Don’t say anything,” said Darcy, and Rise just shook her head.

* *

Darcy wasn’t surprised that she was no longer at the forefront of the investigation into...well, into HYDRA, she supposed. 

After sleeping and taking a shower, she found Rise on her bed with her tablet opened. “We’re supposed to report to intelligence,” she said. 

“Right,” Darcy said. “Is it business casual on the island, or..?” 

“I’m just not wearing that suit again,” Rise said. “And it doesn’t look like they’ve got a dry cleaner here.” She was in a SHIELD work-out t-shirt and a pair of the form fitting pants that made up the suits that the command officers wore on the Helicarrier. “I got some for you, too.” 

Darcy changed, and felt a little self-conscious - both intellectually, because she was a firm believer that leggings were not pants, and physically, because just about everyone on base and on the Helicarrier was in better shape than she was. She was relieved Rise came from a similar viewpoint and hadn’t just grabbed t hem both skintight jumpsuits. 

She felt a little better when she found Matan seated in the makeshift office that they were going to work out of. His arm was in a soft cast, now, and he looked like he had put some weight back on. “Hey,” she said.

He just shook his head. “How was your transcontinental adventure and villain pursuit?” he asked. “And you’ve only got Level 2 clearance.” 

“I think we’ll all get an upgrade,” Rise said, setting into the couch and crossing her legs. She eyed the piles of boxes stacked throughout the room. “Paper records?” 

“All shreddable, all fungible,” Matan said, with a wry smile.

Darcy settled in at the desk in the room. She and Matan were directly facing each other. It reminded her of college. She and her roommate had put their desks facing each other sophomore year to increase the space in their room. They would sit on their laptops, doing work, and occasionally peer up and stare at one other. Intent on getting work done, they would communicate through Gchat. 

Darcy sighed. Her roommate was in law school, now. It was where Darcy was supposed to wind up, though from the long, expletive ridden e-mails that she received she knew she was sort of better off working for SHIELD.

Except you didn’t normally get shot at when you were in law school. 

“These are all accounts,” Darcy said, quickly flipping through an enormous binder. 

“Right, so you want to-” Rise began. Darcy felt bad for interrupting her, since Rise was her superior and all.

“I am really, really bad with numbers,” she said. Another reason she was destined to wind up in law school - it was for people who didn’t know enough math to take the MCATs. Da-dum-ching! 

“You interned for an astrophysicist and you’re not good with numbers?” Rise asked.

“I did all her filling,” Darcy replied. “Organized her computer. Offered some big picture insights. Made sure she went to bed and had her coffee.” 

Matan shook his head, like this was part of some great injustice. “I was the only one who applied,” Darcy added. “There was little allure to bum-fuck New Mexico. And also it was before Jane was a widely known astrophysicist.” 

“I’ll take the numbers,” Matan said. “You can read these telephone transcripts.” They switched binders. 

Darcy narrowed her eyes, fairly certain the transcripts were typed. “Do we have a year for this?” she asked. 

“Like twelve hours,” Rise said, then bit at her lower lip. “Sixties, seventies maybe? It all got dredged up out of our archives or they found it in that hole in the ground in Canada.” 

Darcy stared at the bits and pieces that had been redacted. “This is, like, Nixon-level shit,” she said. She ran her fingers through her hair and frowned when several bits of hair came out. She tended to lose hair when she was stressed - but now was not an ideal time. 

“Pretty much,” Matan said. “When you’re done you need to put it in that box over there so we can get it scanned.” 

Darcy nodded and began to read - there were worse things, then, like being the SHIELD agent in the support services sector who had to scan all of this bullshit. Still, though, they got to live on a tropical island/atoll. Plus, Darcy knew that she should have known better - she wasn’t suddenly going to become the Avengers personal assistant. She’d only been brought in for that front line, action filled part of things because she knew Jane. And Jane was safe now, so there wasn’t any other need for her to be interacting with super heroes and super scientists. She had a job to do.

* *

“It was a bitch finding you, you know?” Jane said, and Darcy looked up from the page that she had almost fallen asleep in. 

“Hey,” Darcy said. “Uh, Agent Matan Zahavi, this is Dr. Jane Foster.” 

Matan stood and offered Jane his good hand. She shook it, though tentatively, as though the whole of him might break. “It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “Especially after hearing about you.”

Darcy knew she was supposed to make some standard quip - I only say good things! - but her brain was in a gelatinous state. “You’re my co-worker,” she said to Matan. “Of course I’d mention you.”

“It’s fine,” he said.

“Can you get dinner?” Jane asked. Rise nodded, and Jane furrowed her brow and shook her head. Jane, despite largely seeming quiet and polite, had a bit of an issue with authority. 

“This is good,” Darcy said as they walked out of the office. “I was definitely starting to get cross-eyed, especially looking at all of those type writer transcripts, and, seriously, who makes your secretary type up every call, even the ones where you decide that you’re going to meet somewhere different or that you need to call your wife and make sure you’ve got bread for sandwiches-”

“Yeah, that’s a bit...but!” Jane said. “No work talk. This is your break. You should enjoy it. They have mahi mahi for dinner.” 

“Our tax dollars at work,” Darcy siad.

Jane considered this. “Is SHIELD funded by the American government?”

“You know...” Darcy squinted. “That’s a good question.” She cocked her head when Jane led her into a small room with a single table in it. “Isn’t the cafeteria-”

“I arranged something a little more intimate,” Jane said, and she had the grin on her face that indicated she was up to something. “Especially since, despite everyone buzzing around and acting all busy and high security and shit, we’re not going to find anything out for some time, so we might as well relax and enjoy things, right? Also, apparently, when you get kidnapped, you get special benefits, like super secret romantic dining rooms-” She shrugged her shoulders. She still looked a little ragged.

Darcy just nodded. “Well, this is great,” she said. “Will there be wine?”

“Can you drink on the clock?” Jane asked. “Hey, don’t give me that look - I’m just concerned for your career, Darcy Lewis, not to mention, I believe I’ve served as your reference-”

“Water will be great,” Darcy said. “Maybe a Diet Coke.”

“Mmm, yeah, tell me about it, but I feel like I’m getting a bit fidgety, you know?” Jane said. She held her hand out, and it shook a little. Darcy grabbed it. Since Jane had been the one to basically rescue herself, Darcy had sort of forgotten what she had likely gone through up to that point - even though there was a deep, dark bruise on Jane’s face. 

“Did they-”

“Mmm, a little pistol whipping,” Jane said, and she waved her hand over her cheek. “Some hitting and shoving, but they needed me functional enough so I could build their eeeevil machine.” Jane turned and smiled. “Thanks, Malinda,” she said.

Darcy recognized the cafeteria worker from the Helicarrier - and what kind of security clearance did they have? And there had to be so many people like that, too, cafeteria workers and janitors at the CIA, NSA, White House...

Malinda set family style dishes in front of them, and was followed by another worker who brought plates and silverware. Darcy served herself a heap of mahi mahi and the accompanying mashed potatos. “Sooo good,” she said.

Jane nodded, almost shoveling food into her mouth. Darcy had rarely seen Jane eat like that. 

“So, uh, how’s Thor?” she asked.

“Thor,” Jane said, and sighed. “I knew he came, they told me - so I could modify that weapon for them...so I knew he came, and that was cool, but still, like, fuck, take your time handling your shit, you know?” Darcy nodded and watched as Jane speared a piece of fish. “But then he explained how things got all pear-shaped with Tesseract time travel, and how it wasn’t as good as the Bifrost-”

“And all was forgiven?” 

“It’s not that easy,” Jane said. “Obviously he cared for me - Agent Coulson said that he was concerned for me once he came after Loki,” Jane said. “And I get it, your brother goes on not one, but two genocidal rampages, there’s some stuff to deal with. I told him al this. I don’t know how it translated into Allspeak.” _Probably hilariously,_ Darcy thought, but did not interject. “Anyway, he seemed really upset, so...”

“Sexual healing?” Darcy asked.

“Even though I was in a vulnerable place I was able to tell him that we needed to get to know each other better, before that happened,” Jane said. She crossed her arms, as if daring Darcy to contradict her.

“I think that was a good thing,” Darcy said. After all, how long had they known Thor in New Mexico?

“Well, that’s good,” Jane said. “Good to hear you affirm my judgment.” Darcy frowned. “I’m sorry, that was mean-”

“You can be as mean as you want,” Darcy said. “You get a free pass during your first twenty-four hours after being rescued from kidnapping by an evil organization of...Loki worshippers? HYDRA wannabes? Whatever they are.” 

“They didn’t share a lot of their ideology,” Jane said. “I tried to get it out of them! I thought of you.” 

“I appreciate that,” Darcy said. Malinda brought in two bowls of ice cream for them - _SHIELD just knows,_ Darcy thought, digging into the ice cream. _They see you when you’re sleeping, they know when you’re awake..._

* *

Getting coffee was not as easy on the Secret Island Base as it was back in the Intelligence Building in the hinterlands of New Jersey. Darcy had to go around a few times looking for small, outfitted kitchens before she realized the cafeteria was likely her best bet. 

She was tempted to take a whole pot, but she’d probably get some write-up for that and have to explain why she took company property. So she took the biggest cups they had available and began to carefully fill them.

“Hello.”

She turned, spilling some coffee on the counter before she was able to right the pot. Captain Rogers immediately reached forward and grabbed at some napkins to blot up the spilled coffee. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Darcy said, and she waved her hands at the other three coffee pots in the cafeteria station. “It’s not like there aren’t more where this one came from.” 

He was out of his uniform and wearing a pair of high waisted khakis and a flannel shirt. He looked like the working class hero from some classic movie. Darcy pressed her lips together.

“You’re still working?” he asked. 

“Yes,” Darcy said, and she began to fix the lids on the coffee cups, mentally chanting _don’t fuck it up, don’t fuck it up..._ “We have a, uh, limited window with which to take action.”

“Right,” Captain Rogers said. “I wish there was more that I could do.” He sighed - Darcy had a hard time imagining that there wasn’t much that Captain America could do. She opened her mouth, tempted to invite back to come and look at all of the boring stuff she was digging through, occasionally highlighting something in case it proved to be important in the future. “Well, I, uh, I’ll let you get back to your work.”

He gave her a slight smile, totally self-effacing, and Darcy felt herself swoon. It was hard not to - he was all business in the suit, but in his casual clothing he definitely was the genial leading man or perhaps the hard working best friend who turned into a romantic interest. Plus he genuinely seemed to be sweet, and in that packaging..? 

Darcy did her best to juggle the cups of coffee as she walked back towards their offices. She was going to get herself in trouble. She always got herself in trouble.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies it's taken so long for an update - I realized I wrote myself into a corner, and have only recently figured out how to write myself out of it.

“So...all of that, and then, just, oh, looks like it’s all dead ends?” Darcy asked. She, Rise, and Matan had been buried deep in documents for almost two days before Rise was called into a meeting and returned to let them know they could all go and get some rest.

This meant they were going back to New Jersey. She hadn’t even had time to enjoy being on the possibly irradiated atoll - though what difference did it make, after Chernobyl? _Probably should still keep up with the birth control, Lewis,_ she thought. 

“Pretty much,” Rise said. “But the truth is out there.” 

“That’s a dated reference,” Darcy replied.

“Everyone knows that, though,” Matan replied. Darcy pursed her lips - was someone developing a crush? Not that she could blame him. Rise was pretty hot. 

“Well, probably not Captain Rogers,” Darcy said - and then realized she was getting the same look from both of them that she had just given Matan. “He is from the 1940s,” she added. 

“Indeed, he is,” Rise said. “Sleep.” 

Darcy had largely been sleeping in the office and had forgot that she was bunked up with Rise. She just figured they were walking down the hall together to the rooms, until Rise followed her into the room. Rise was, of course, aware of this and gave her a creepy grin. 

“This is just like American college, right, Lewis?”

“Oh, are you getting sassy with the last names?” Darcy asked. “Time for bed.” She opened the dresser and pulled out a SHIELD t-shirt and a pair of SHIELD underwear. She had been relieved, when she first went to the room, to find they’d got her a new suit so she didn’t need to wander around in leggings and a t-shirt. 

“Mmm,” Rise said, and stripped down to her underwear. Darcy tried to resist the urge to look - but how could you not? She had good breasts. _Relay this to Zahavi, at some point,_ Darcy told herself. This was proof she needed to sleep. “I would be naked, but I understand you Americans are prude.”

“Scandinavians,” Darcy murmured, and rolled over so she was facing the wall. She thought that she might have a hard time falling asleep, because she was so overtired, but she immediately drifted off. 

She was happy to wake naturally instead of to an alarm. Rise was still sleeping, so Darcy put on a suit skirt and her shirt and decided she needed to go and get a substantial meal. Unfortunately, Jane was still poking at machines - there was, still, plenty to be deciphered from them - so Darcy padded off to the cafeteria by herself. 

The offerings weren’t as expansive as in her home facility, but there were still enough healthy options - a decent mixed salad, a turkey, cranberry, and brie sandwich, and more ice cream. _Definitely more ice cream-_

“It’s pretty good, isn’t it?” 

Darcy’s eyes widened as she startled. She really needed to get better at this, being a spy and all. “Yes,” she replied. “Though I cannot vouch for the cookies and cream, I haven’t had that yet.” 

“So that’s what that is,” said Captain Rogers, wearing sweats and a t-shirt that was very tight, almost cruelly so. “I’m more used to the classics, I guess.”

“Dad flavors,” Darcy said, without really think about it - but her own father and grandfather seemed to be the only people that liked black raspberry, maple walnut, and butter pecan. 

“I guess so,” Captain Rogers said, and he scratched the back of his neck. “Are you eating with anyone?” 

“No,” Darcy said. “Jane is poking machine-things in the lab.”

“Ah,” said Captain Rogers. He smiled at her. Darcy smiled back. “So, I don’t either.”

“Oh,” Darcy said. “Did you want to, uh, eat together?” Steve beamed, and nodded, like she had to be particularly clever to come up with the idea. 

They sat and ate in silence for a few minutes, Steve smiled at her as he carefully ate one whole steak and began to start on another, before Darcy finally broke. “So, it’s been an eventful few days.” 

“Yes,” said Captain Rogers, pushing his empty plate aside. Darcy hadn’t really considered the amount of food he was going to have to put away each day until this moment. It was sort of strange, watching someone eat like that. “Well, not so much for us. I haven’t had much to do, not being a scientist or a...well, intelligence agent.” 

Darcy blinked at him. She supposed that was what she was, but the way that he said it made it seem like she had actual skills and qualifications. “Oh, trust me, Captain-”

“I think, in this context, you could call me Steve. If you wanted.” 

“Steve,” she said. “OK.” He stopped, fork halfway to his mouth, and then raised his eyebrows at her. “Ah, yes. I’m Darcy.” She stuck out her hand. He put his fork down, and shook her hand. His grip was firm, strong, very...firm. She resisted the urge to sigh.

“Great,” he said. “So. How did you wind up interning for Dr. Foster, anyway?” 

_This I can handle,_ Darcy thought. It was, she realized, her origin story. Not as good as it could have been, not until you got to the part where they found Thor and then ran him over, but it could be a whole lot worse. There were compelling elements, like how Jane had run Thor over at least three times. And how he had been butt-ass naked.

“What about you?” she asked, hoping that the story had been cohesive and not the verbal diarrhea it likely was. “I mean, haha, so. I sort of know the answer. That’s awkward.”

“Oh?” Captain Rogers - Steve asked.

“Well, we read about you. For Memorial Day, and Veterans Day, and...” she nodded her head. “In school, I mean. We had a whole unit on you. Not, like, my family or anything.” He smiled at her.

“Yeah, I kinda figured,” he said. “SHIELD gave me all of those old film reels on some disc thing.” 

“Oh,” Darcy said. “So, do you have an apartment in the city?” 

“In Brooklyn,” he said. “Sort of my old neighborhood. Kind of weird, though, because-”

“Hipsters,” Darcy said, and then instantly clamped her mouth shut because she had interrupted Captain America. “I’m sorry.”

“No, yeah, that’s exactly it. Clint told me they were called that, and showed me some websites, and I don’t quite...get it? Do you get it?” He was asking the question honestly. 

“Well, they are of my generation,” Darcy said. “And I have been accused of being a hipster-”

“Really?” 

“Well, I did have a bitchin’ collection of grandpa sweaters,” Darcy said - and immediately thought, _good work, Lewis, another grandpa reference_. Also, the grandpa sweaters, not the best image to call up in this circumstance, especially since they had been primarily adopted for warmth and hiding her tits from fraternity douche-bro purposes. 

“Yes,” Steve said, not bothered. “That does seem to be a characteristic. I often get complimented on my clothes.” 

“Right,” Darcy said. “But, I mean, I’m really not cool enough-”

“I thought hipsters didn’t want to be cool,” Steve replied.

“Well, they do,” Darcy said. “But...they don’t want you to think that they do? It’s ironic?” She shrugged her shoulders, and then wondered what she had finally said that was wrong because Steve was sort of grimacing and leaning back in his chair.

Then she realized he was looking behind her. _Oh, right,_ Darcy thought. She turned and smiled at Tony.

“I’m sorry, am I interrupting you two on some date or something?” he asked.

“No,” Darcy and Steve said, though both of them sounded a bit abrupt and nervous and, _well, that’s sort of a good sign?_ Darcy thought, and then, _oh, shit, I’m doing this. Or wanting to do this. Or...shit._ As far as she could remember, though, there wasn’t a fraternization clause in the SHIELD rulebook. 

“Great,” Tony said. “Because we need you in the lab, Captain, we’ve got some questions.” 

“Certainly,” Steve said, standing and taking his tray. “It was nice to talk with you, Agent Lewis.” 

Darcy nodded, a little disappointed that she was back to being Agent Lewis, but then again, they’d both denied being on a date, so - and it wasn’t like it was, anyway, it was just too people in a cafeteria at the same time who knew each other.

She sighed as he walked away, then stood up to go and get a dish of ice cream. 

* *

“You know what would be nice?” Rise asked, after they got off the Quinjet at Intelligence Headquarters two days later - or one day? Or three days? Darcy was not sure how to the international dateline worked, in regards to SHIELD Atoll. “I would like to get frequent flier miles for business travel. That would be nice.”

“Where would you go?” Darcy asked, because she could play this game. She hadn’t slept particularly well on the flight this time around and even access to a tablet with a bunch of ridiculous movie options had not helped.

“South Africa,” Rise said. “You?”

“Well,” Darcy said. “London, Paris...hit up the classics, I guess-”

“I hate Paris,” Matan said. Darcy gave him a concerned look. “But it was probably because I was making OK money, so I was not in a position to be some poor student eating bread and cheese under the Eiffel Tower, but not enough money to get the good food, either.” He shrugged. 

“Thanks,” Darcy said. “I’ll take that into account.”

“Prague is kind of disappointing, too,” Matan said.

“Do you like anywhere?” Darcy asked.

Matan considered this. “Montreal,” he said. Darcy narrowed her eyes, not entirely sure if this was a joke on his part or not.

Rise took the moment to divert the conversation. “All right, agents, it’s back to the status quo. We’ve got work streams getting diverted back to us-”

Darcy blackberry vibrated in her pocket, and she pulled it out. “Well timed,” she replied.

“I was supposed to be able to say as we speak before that happened, but, yeah,” Rise replied.

Matan sighed, glancing at his own blackberry and its blinking red light. “I like to think of this thing as the Red Eye of Sauron.” 

* *

“Look, I’m just saying, it’s not like, you know, sunshine and flowers-”

“More like moonshine and meteors,” Darcy interjected, doodling on her notepad. At least one of the benefits of normal work flow was that there was time for coffee, doodling, and chatting on the phone every now and again. These tended to keep your eyes from crossing.

“Whatever,” Jane said, though Darcy could tell she was at least smiling. “We’ve talked, obviously. I just thought, like, double date might be good.” 

“I knew you were going there,” Darcy said. “And I am not - I know what you are all trying to do-”

“Trying to do what?” Jane asked. “You could do with...someone. Well, more than some Scandinavian fuck buddy. There’s no, like, set Darcy up with - fuck, I don’t know - conspiracy.” Darcy narrowed her eyes. Jane had basically missed all of that.

“So who will I be going on a date with?” Darcy asked. 

“Well, I haven’t really - look, I’ll figure out something, OK? Just be a good friend, Darcy Lewis.” Darcy sighed.

In the very least - double date with Thor would be amusing, right? “Just send me an e-mail, OK, and let me know how to dress.”

“Look at you, that makes you sound like a real adult,” Jane said, and she ended the phone call with a tight giggle. Darcy glanced down at her doodle and wondered if she could check and see if Jane was seeing one of the many SHIELD therapists, psychologists, or psychiatrists. Probably mandated after a kidnapping - SHIELD was thorough.

Jane called back five minutes later, proving that she probably needed to talk to someone. “Maybe not a date,” she said. “That would be kind of weird, since Thor is just hanging around the Tower - everyone is hanging around the Tower. Maybe you should just come over. Like, as a friend?” 

“OK,” Darcy said. 

Even with the change in plans, Darcy still threw clothes around her tiny bedroom in preparation for things because, well - even if everyone was sort of treating it like a joke, trying to set her up with Steve, it wasn’t. Not really. He was, after all, gorgeous, and seemed really nice, and...so, she needed to look like a respectable human being. She didn’t have a bevy of options, in that regard.

She settled on a jersey dress and a cardigan - casual enough to look like something she would wear in the evenings, still flattering. She jammed a scarf into her purse in case they decided to go on the roof or it became expedient to tame her chest, and then stepped outside to wait for the car to come and pick her up. Apparently one of the benefits of living with a billionaire and being part of his science triumverate was that he would dispatch cars to come and pick up your friends who lived somewhere all the fuck out in New Jersey. 

“You look nervous,” the driver said, as they moved through the Lincoln Tunnel and into Manhattan.

“Well,” Darcy said. “I don’t know. I don’t really do this. Date thing. It’s not even really a date, more just hanging out, but-”

The driver shook his head. “You kids these days,” he said. “Our grandparents used to go to dinner, go dancing...we went to movies and restaurants...and all you do is...” 

“Are you judging me?” Darcy asked, and then gave him her best _I am a deadly top-secret spy_ glower and put her purse in her lap. 

Jane met her at the elevator and was bouncing on her feet. “Hey,” she said. “I’ve been in the lab, a lot, because Thor keeps wanting to... _talk_.”

“Jane, are you OK?” Darcy asked as they ascended.

“I know, I know,” Jane said. “I thought things couldn’t get weirder - but they did. And, yeah, getting pistol whipped is not cool...and I’m probably channeling all of my anxiety into the Thor thing, you’re right. But, it’s not like I can just snap my fingers and make everything different, so.” 

“That’s what Xanax is for,” Darcy replied.

“I took a Xanax once and woke up in Arizona,” Jane replied, just as the elevator opened. “We ordered in a shit ton of pizza. Thor eats a lot. So does Steve.”

“Yeah, whole super soldier metabolism thing - is everyone hanging around here because they figure things are going to heat up, again? Because we got told to stand down-”

“No shop talk after seven thirty!” Tony walked out of the kitchen, glanced up and down her outfit in a way that was only slightly...sexual, more just amused, and smiled at her. “For example, I’ll be referring to you as Darcy. How are you, Darcy?” 

“Good,” she said. “Except your driver judged me.”

“Yeah, Horace does that.”

“You have a driver named Horace?” Jane asked.

“Not technically,” Tony said. “I hire a service, you know, since Happy works at SI now...look, the 1% problems. Let’s get some pizza.” 

Darcy stepped into the kitchen and was unnerved to see Agent Barton and Agent Romanoff perched on the breakfast bar. She had assumed everyone just meant Steve and Thor - after all, SHIELD barracks were just down the street. Agent Barton was wearing a vintage purple t-shirt and sweats, while Agent Romanoff had on jeans and a hooded sweatshirt she probably had borrowed from one of the men.

“Well, hello,” Darcy said. “Uh, Agents.”

Clint looked at Natasha, who shrugged her shoulders. “Agent Lewis. Just here for the evening?” she asked. Darcy sighed. 

“To see Jane, yes,” Darcy replied. “And eat pizza, I suppose.”

“There is a lot of pizza,” Clint said. He got down off of the counter and handed her a plate. 

“Great,” Darcy said. “Pizza is good, since my body still doesn’t know what time zone it’s in.”

“I know, right? I hate going to the atoll,” Clint said.

“Oh, hello, Darcy,” Captain Rogers - Steve, she reminded herself - said, appearing in the doorway. He put his hands in the pockets of what were definitely grandpa pants. Though they did look amazing on him.

“Hello, Ca-Steve,” she said, and put a piece of pizza on her plate. 

“I do not understand the need to divide your realm into these time zones,” Thor said, appearing behind Steve and yawning. 

Tony actually squeezed his entire face together at this and looked like he was going to have a headache - it took Darcy a moment to realize that this was because of how Thor’s question played into the still looming question of whether Asgard was another planet, or another dimension. “The sun,” Tony said, finally. “Doesn’t Asgard have a sun?” 

“Aye, myself, for one,” Thor said. Tony opened his eyes slowly and nodded.

“You like pizza, don’t you, Thor?” he asked.

“I do,” Thor replied. “Wait, were you referring to the orb that your planet rotates around?” 

“Yes,” Tony replied. “The sun.”

“Asgard has several,” Thor said. “We have given them unique names.” 

“Several?” Jane asked, and she pulled a pen from somewhere in her hair and got a look on her face that Darcy recognized all too well.

“It’s after 7:30, remember?” Darcy asked, arching her eyebrow as she took a bite of her pizza. 

“Right, but this has been something that I’ve been trying to-”

“For over a year,” Darcy said, voice calm. This was how she used to talk Jane down after she found her, still awake after Darcy had gone to bed, woke up, showered, and had breakfast. “You can wait another day, right?” She caught Steve looking at her, and had to immediately look away. She didn’t want to seem like she was patronizing Jane. 

“God, can I hire you?” Tony asked. “Well, Pepper would prefer to hire you, I think, but this is exactly what I need, is someone to tell me when I should stop tinkering and just enjoy the finer things in life...” 

“Get an intern,” Jane said, grinning slightly. “They’re surprisingly easy to find, in this economy.”

“I think Stark Industries has over hundreds of them,” Tony said. “But this is an interesting idea, to get my own, personal intern.”

“I don’t think that’s really a good idea,” Bruce said, appearing and immediately going to stand in a corner. “And you’d probably end up getting sued, anyway. Besides, isn’t that what DUM-E is for?” 

“Well, he can poke at me, shoot me with fire extinguishers, but that doesn’t necessarily make me stop - don’t look at us like that. It’s the problem with being a genius, you know-”

“Yes, genius,” Steve said, looking up from his plate of his pizza. “That is precisely the problem.”

Darcy smiled at this, and then looked away before he could make eye contact with her. _Suck it up, Lewis,_ she thought. _You had lunch with him, after all. Well, sort of lunch._

It got easier, after that - or, the conversation was more fluid, and natural, and shifted to things that Darcy could make a comment or two about while not simultaneously feeling awkward about being in a room with a team of super heroes and Jane. Though, after everything that had happened, Jane was sort of a super hero. She had certainly handled things better than Darcy would have. 

Clint and Natasha glanced at each other when it was clear everyone was done with the pizza and then smiled and left, clearly having made a decision through some telepathy unique to both of them. Bruce mumbled something about needing to get sleep, then glanced at Tony, who looked down at his watch. “It’s eight,” he said.

“Remember what we said about jet lag?” Bruce asked. “Besides, Pepper-”

“Oh, yes, Pepper,” Tony said, and he winked at Darcy, the bastard.

She hated these kinds of things. She acutely remembered, in college, when her friends had decided that she needed to get a boyfriend because they all had one. They drug her through several evenings with various boyfriend’s friends, each time prompting her to answer questions or to express interests that were analogous to the man of the evening. It had made her anxious, how it was a group effort and they were treating it like a team sport. 

Not to mention - this was Captain Fucking America, and these were the Avengers, and there was absolutely no reason for her to be here. She had decided to apply for an internship, been the only applicant, and somehow wound up being one of three human beings who was engaged in Earth’s first contact with aliens/Asgardians/whatevers. It could have been anyone. No one had ever picked her for it. 

“Well,” Jane said. “I know everyone keeps trying to get you two to watch movies-”

“I find them most educational,” Thor said. Steve nodded. 

“Oh, well, great,” Jane said. “I’ve got plenty of stuff lined up, that I’ve wanted to see, so I’m sure we can find something...” They walked into the main living area in the common room, where Jane plopped down on a couch and Thor soon followed. Darcy inhaled - because, despite her misgivings and lack of self-confidence, she did like Steve, and not just because he was Captain America. He seemed like a really sweet, decent guy. In a great package.

She sat down on the other couch, and then immediately looked at Jane and started debating various movie choices so that Steve could sit down without too much fanfare - she remembered, too often, friends of hers tracking men in a room until they sat next to them. Funny how in college she would often think about how she was so over high school shit, and now working for a government security agency she would think about she was so over college shit. _Darcy Lewis, this is your life,_ she thought.

“My vote is for something lighthearted - Steven, what is your view?” Thor said.

“Comedy is good,” Steve said. Jane decided that Monty Python and the Holy Grail was in order, and it turned out being an astute choice. Thor didn’t need to understand Midgardian culture to laugh at many of the jokes, and Steve didn’t need to understand history. 

“She turned me into a newt,” Steve said, smiling slightly. “I got better!” 

“It would appear so,” Thor added.

As the movie progressed, he moved closer to Darcy - and she did her best not to force any of the interaction, instead just keeping her body language open and welcoming to him. Eventually he was close enough that, when she folded her legs underneath her, their thighs touched each other. “Sorry,” she said.

“Why?” Steve asked, leaning his head into hers. Darcy felt _that_ sort of euphoric feeling, what her mother always referred to as butterflies in the stomach - making sure to remind Darcy, after dates, that if she didn’t feel butterflies things weren’t worth pursuing. This, of course, probably had to do more with her mother’s own regrets than it was legitimately sage advice for a twenty-two year old.

“It’s awfully late,” Jane said, when the movie was over - and Darcy opened her mouth to point out that it was ten o’clock, but Jane gave her a pointed look, so she closed it. “You should probably spend the night, Darcy. After all, you don’t have to work tomorrow.”

“I don’t?” Darcy asked. 

“You don’t work on Saturday, do you?” Jane asked.

“Well, that’s a pleasant surprise,” Darcy said. Steve laughed at this, while Thor looked between Jane and then Darcy and Steve and then smiled. 

“You can stay in my guest bedroom,” Jane said, raising her eyebrows slightly. It took Darcy a moment to realize why she was emphasizing this particular piece of information.

“Oh,” Darcy said. “You have a guest room?” 

“Yes,” Jane replied. “It has a very large bed.” 

“How nice,” Darcy said. Thor didn’t seem to be any the wiser, though Darcy was pretty sure that they were all under estimating him much of the time - either due to the All-Speak translations, or to the fact that they were just getting hung up in differences between their realms. 

“Is that what that extra room is for?” Steve asked.

“Well, mine already had a bed in it,” Jane said. “But if yours doesn’t, you can do whatever you want with it. Like make it into an office.”

“An office?” Steve asked.

“For official Captain America business,” Darcy said, because she couldn’t resist. “You could answer your fan mail in there.” She stopped herself before she added a comment on how he would probably need a decent amount of space, given the backlog he probably had. 

“You think we get fan mail?” Steve asked. Darcy looked over at Jane, who smiled slightly, so Darcy shrugged. 

“Sure, you know, like writing to Santa,” Darcy replied. Steve smiled at this - though she was pretty sure he thought she was joking. She bet all of the Avengers received a lot of fan mail, and that fifty percent of it was pornographic. That was what fan mail was for, after all.

“Well,” said Thor, standing, “I will not keep you two ladies from going for the evening’s respite.” Steve stood, as well.

“Goodnight,” he said, and then, leaning towards Darcy slightly, “it was nice to see you again.”

“Well, she will be here tomorrow!” Jane said.

Darcy didn’t touch on things until they got back to her apartment. “I did not agree to come out here and be your convenient cock block - not that I think fucking Thor is going to make things, uh, easier, or whatever, though it would probably be awesome-”

“I didn’t ask you for that,” Jane said. “I just figured-”

“And,” Darcy continued, “as you’re using me as a shield in one direction you’re launching me like a javelin in another.”

“I think that might be a mixed metaphor,” Jane replied.

“Whatever,” Darcy said, flopping back into the bed. “You knew what I meant.”

“You don’t like him?” 

“Jane - it’s absurd,” Darcy said.

Jane sat down on the bed and cocked her head. “How so?”

“Captain America,” Darcy said, holding out one hand. “Darcy Lewis.” She held out another.

“Agent Darcy Lewis of SHIELD Intelligence,” Jane said. “It’s not like they offer those spots to anyone.” 

“They had to,” Darcy replied. “They had to put me somewhere so I wouldn’t be selling my first contact story off to whatever tabloid.” 

“Yeah, but they could have made you a coffee barista,” Jane said. “Or put you in HR.” 

“I’m not awesome, Jane,” Darcy said.

“OK,” Jane replied. “I was never good at that game, anyway - oh, I’m so fat! Look at my arms! There is this tiny bit right here that is kind of wobbly!”

“I’m not fishing for compliments, though,” Darcy said.

“Was that what they were doing?” Jane asked, then shook her head. “No wonder I didn’t have any female friends.” Darcy nodded to this. “Anyway, look, I know I put you in an awkward situation. But I appreciate it.” 

“I know,” Darcy said, and she smiled.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains canon typical violence directed towards characters, both main and minion. It either occurs off-scene or is not graphically described. There is also discussion of the possibility of non-con towards characters, but none occurs.

Subconsciously, Darcy understood that at some point she was going to actually be kidnapped.

She didn’t think it would happen at Starbucks, but then again, she never thought she’d become a woman in black. 

The barista was in on it, because they slipped something in her coffee. As soon as her captor - male, dark hair, completely indistinct - pressed the gun he had concealed in his jacket to her hip, she began to feel dizzy and limp. It reminded her of when she had got rophied in college - not an awkward or horrible story to tell, actually, because it had been via fraternity jungle juice. She and her roommate had gone down to a bar and fell all over themselves on the dance floor, and her roommate had pushed her to leave. Then Kate had wanted to sleep under a bush, and Darcy had been adamant that they get back to their rooms and get in their bed. _With our powers combined!_ they said, and their mythology as friends began there.

She began to sweat and the other feelings amplified as they walked towards his car. “I think you need to sit down, sweetheart,” he murmured, and she complied, getting in the passenger seat. 

When he closed the door and began to drive, she said, “Sweetheart, really? That only gets used in bad romance novels and Hallmark cards.” Though SHIELD had never instructed her on this, she was fairly certain that it was standard protocol for her to snark her captor - the villain - at any and all opportunities. 

“That’s too bad,” he said. “You look like a sweetheart.” 

Darcy tried to figure out what he meant by that, but she found herself slipping out of consciousness - and, more importantly, she wanted to know how much it took to bribe a Starbucks barista. She was definitely filling a comment card out about that.

* *

“Fancy seeing you here,” Rise said, and Darcy squeezed her eyes open. They had both their legs and arms bound, but were on beds with pillows behind them. “This reminds me of a bad porno I once watched.”

“You mean a bad night of sex you participated in,” Darcy said. Rise didn’t have any visible wounds, so Darcy presumed that she hadn’t been touched - or _touched_ , and she shuddered - in any way.

Rise cocked her head. “Where did they get you?”

“Starbucks,” Darcy said. 

“Mmm,” Rise said. “Cab driver picking me up from a friends.”

“A sex friends,” Darcy said, because what else was there to say?

“You would think,” said a man, and he appeared in the doorway and then entered the room as he continued talking, “that, since you’re both spies, SHIELD would teach you to be less predictable. Not establish habits.” 

“Hello Rob,” Rise said, rolling her eyes.

Darcy glanced at Rob - tall, blonde haired, looked like he had probably played water polo or rowed in college. And what sort of villain looked like he stepped out of a JCrew catalogue? Although that probably went along with his little lecture about unpredictability.

“You were so very close,” Rob said. “And it’s Robert now.”

“Of course,” Rise said. “Can’t have your minions think of you like the overgrown frat boy you are.” He narrowed his eyes at her, and Darcy made a note that this seemed to have struck a nerve for whatever reason. Probably some sort of perverse hazing incident. “When did you decide to get out of the human trafficking business?” 

_Ah,_ Darcy thought, _this makes a lot of sense._ Rise’s big project at the UN had been on human trafficking, and the fact that one of her old foes was involved in the Loki cult explained Rise’s annoyance over how she couldn’t quite put her finger on something.

“It all gets so same-y after a certain point, you know?” 

“Fuck, really?” Darcy asked. Rob or whatever his name was turned his attention over to her. “You’re going to stand there and snark at us? Will you reveal your master plan next?”

“He doesn’t really have to,” Rise said, sighing. “He obviously kidnapped to lure the Avengers or SHIELD here, after realizing that kidnapping a genius physicist was a poor choice.” 

“Riight,” Darcy said. “Because they’re real attached to us.”

“Exactly,” Rise replied. “Do you want to get on with the rape and torture?” 

Rob or whatever looked at both of them, eyes narrowed. Then he turned, smiled, and left the small room. Darcy glanced over at Rise, who had a slight grin on her face - she couldn’t tell if Rise was acting, or if she was really pleased. Which meant she couldn’t tell if they had actually accomplished something, there, or just played right into the villain’s hands.

“It is true, though,” Darcy said. “We don’t have any skills.” 

“Intelligence,” Rise replied, and shook her head. 

“So, this dude-”

“Used to be a big facilitator of the flow of women from Eastern Europe into the United States,” said Rise. “I worked on a UN task force to try and shut them down - spent a lot of time in the Czech Republic, Germany, Moldova, Ukraine...” She shook her head, and Darcy could imagine why. There were too many terrible things to think about, there.

“I interviewed him, once, but I didn’t have jurisdiction - wasn’t even police,” Rise said. 

“You were pretending to be interested in fucking him, weren’t you?”

Rise shrugged. “We were able to dismantle the apparatus beneath him, but he disappeared. He looks like an overgrown frat boy, but he’s a Wharton M.B.A. He knows how to organize things. Keep them quiet. Make them efficient.”

She sighed. Darcy wondered if she was just saying that, as part of a flatter the villain scheme, or if this guy really was a reasonable foe.

* * *

As it turned out, actually getting kidnapped was really boring.

“Not that I’m upset at the lack of rape and torture,” Darcy said.

“I’d settle for mild torture,” Rise replied. “Like Old Eurovision songs.”

* *

“What stupid location do you think we’re in?” Darcy asked.

“Uruguay,” Rise replied.

“Liechtenstein,” Darcy said.

“Cleveland.”

“Chad.”

“One of the ‘stans no one really thinks about,” Rise replied. “Tajikistan. Kyrgyzstan - that only has one vowel in it, you know.” 

“We used to play this game, in fifth grade, where one person would name a country, continent, state, city, or ocean and then the other person would have to name one whose name started in the letter the other ended in,” Darcy said. They also used to play a game called mum-ball, where you weren’t allowed to speak. She was the worst at that. 

“I’m in,” Rise said.

* *

“My arms hurt,” Darcy said.

“Yes, I know,” Rise replied.

“Right,” Darcy said.

* *

Eventually, despite being uncomfortable, Darcy began to nod off.

This was when a minion entered and grinned at both of them. “Intelligence agents, huh?” the minion asked. 

“Supposedly,” Rise replied. Darcy looked over at her - neither of them had a good idea of how to behave when kidnapped. Well, Darcy presumed. She doubted people regularly got kidnapped when they were working in the UN. 

“Let’s see what you know,” the minion said. He smiled at both of them, and Darcy felt a pit in her stomach, which then dropped, deep into her. 

“This is going to be the torture and rape part, isn’t it?” Darcy asked. The minion’s grin widened, and he pulled out a cigarette and lit it. _Shit,_ Darcy thought. 

They had training for this, of course, and Darcy recalled the statement she was supposed to repeat - her SHIELD employee number, her name, her date of birth. Just like she was in the military, though she certainly was no soldier. She closed her eyes, and inhaled. Matan had done this, he had alluded to it in a bar one night. He’d been captured by Palestinian forces and held for two days at gun point. He had done this, and he had been fine-

* *

“OK,” said Rise, when the minion left. “No more games.” One of her eyes was swollen where he had punched her in the face. 

“You know how to get out of this?” Darcy asked. 

“No,” said Rise. “But I don’t feel like loosing another tooth.” 

“You lost a tooth?” Darcy asked. Rise spit into her lap and there was a flash of white and red for a moment. “Fuck.”

“SHIELD has a good dental plan,” Rise replied. “Besides, it’s not my first. I lost one in when I tried speed skating and went flat on my face.”

“Oh,” Darcy said, and thinking back, she was able to guess which one it was - slightly whiter than the others, the shape a little bit too perfect.

“But this is a molar,” Rise said. 

_What would...Agent Romanov do?_ Darcy thought. She needed to get her hands free, somehow, but each was handcuffed to the opposite sides of the bed. So they were only going to get out if someone removed one, and then only if she acquired an implement to remove the other.

_Two ways to go about engineering that scenario_ , she decided. Both could work, considering that these guys were complete idiots - they had done the kidnapping to lure the Avengers thing twice, after all. This was to their advantage. So. _Tits_ , she thought, _there was tits_. She could probably convince one of the minions that she wanted to fuck him, that she was willing to turn sides. She could probably play that convincingly enough...but it didn’t guarantee that they would uncuff her until...after.

That meant the other option - she glanced over at Rise, wondering if she could communicate it without having to say it. Rise was hopefully going through the same thought processes that she was. Darcy figured, at least, she could count on her to assess their advantages the same - these guys were idiots, and one of these idiots clearly had a boner for Rise. So, sort of tits. But they also clearly wanted to keep the two of them alive, so, threats to plan. Tits and threats.

Darcy looked over at Rise and stuck her tongue out and crossed, then closed her eyes.

Rise gave her a slight smile, which must have hurt. Darcy wished it had been her instead of Rise - she thought, for a moment, that maybe they should wait until after Darcy experienced more than an armful of cigarette burns before they made their escape attempt. Rise nodded at her, then coughed.

It was a masterful performance. Darcy had to wonder if it was a training module for upper level agents. The ones who more likely to be kidnapped - _How to Fake a Seizure and Make Your Kidnapper Think You’re Dying._ It was the oldest trick in the book, though, wasn’t it? Hannibal Lecter had immortalized it - and a different psychopath had just done it on his new show.

“Hey, fucktards!” Darcy yelled. “I think you hit her a little too hard!”

Rise was foaming slightly at the mouth, and she managed to get her eyes to roll into the back of her head. 

Rob rushed in, along with two of the minions and a tall, lean woman wearing a grey suit. “Help her!” Darcy said.

“You like her?” Rob asked, as the woman glanced into Rise’s eyes. A bit of blood dribbled out of Rise’s mouth. 

“She’s only going to hurt herself more if her body isn’t relaxed,” the woman said. Rob looked at Rise, then looked at the woman. He nodded. 

“Help her!” Darcy said. “Fuck!” 

Rise played seizure until she had both of her arms free and the woman turned to one of her legs. Darcy squeezed her eyes shut - she had a lot of faith in Rise, in a lot of ways, but she wasn’t exactly the Black Widow. Or even someone like Matan. Sure, she kept up with her SHIELD work outs and defense maneuvers-

It didn’t take much, though, because the woman wasn’t anticipating Rise to move, and Rise wisely lunged forward, took the gun from the woman’s exposed hip holster, and then shot her in the thigh. Blood gushed out of the wound as she took to the ground. 

“Fuck!” said the first minion, and the second aimed his gun at Darcy.

“Oh, shit,” Darcy managed, and the bullet hit in the shoulder. _Oh fuck, oh fuck,_ Darcy thought. _Oh fuck, he was shooting to kill._

Rise shot the second minion in the head - and Darcy did not want to think about that, nope, not at all - then pointed her gun at Rob while the second minion pointed his gun at Rise. “Rise,” said Rob, “let’s not do anything impulsive, here - do you know how many people there are outside? How are you going to get out of this?” 

“You are still such a dick sack,” Rise said. She shot the second minion in the stomach and ducked, the bullet barely missing her. Then she shot the end of the remaining handcuffs on her leg. 

“When did you learn to shoot like that?” Darcy asked. She was pretty sure she was going to pass out. She bit at her tongue to keep herself conscious. 

“In and around,” Rise replied, and Darcy felt so close to something but the pain in her shoulder was radiating down to her stomach. She was going to have to do it, and there was no way to keep it from getting on herself. She threw up. 

While she threw up, Rise put the gun to Rob’s head and walked him over to Darcy. She had got something to pick the handcuff locks with and made quick work of them. 

“There is no one else here,” Rise said. “They would have been in here by now.”

“That’s what we wanted you to think,” Rob replied. 

“How did you guys get so far even though you are so, so dumb?” Darcy asked. She was going to smell like puke and blood for a long time, she was pretty sure. 

“It’s really an unfortunate trend,” Rise said, gun pointed at Rob’s head. “I’m going to get you out,” she said, and Darcy’s hands were free. Her wounded arm dropped and she had to try very hard to keep from screaming. Sweat began to pour down her face, and she closed her eyes for a moment and swallowed really hard.

_It’s OK,_ she thought, as Rise freed her legs, _It’s your first bullet! You probably get a cake and a raise. Also good drugs. Very good drugs._

“OK, Darcy,” Rise said. “Here, focus on my eyes.”

“I’m sorry,” Darcy said, opened her eyes, and focused on Rise. She inhaled and then moved out of the bed - not really certain how she was able to get her body to do it, exactly, but it happened. 

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Rise said. She grabbed the sheet on the bed and ripped it, gun still pointed at Rob. “We’re going to tie this around your shoulder, OK? Like a tourniquet.”

“It’s not really bleeding,” Darcy said. 

“Still,” Rise said. Darcy held the end of the sheet while Rise wrapped it around her. “Let’s get out of here. Give me your other gun.” 

Rob grinned at her, and Rise pistol whipped him so that his head seemed to shake. Darcy was impressed. “Maybe I need to go to all those extra classes,” Darcy said.

“Mmm,” Rise murmured. “Open the door, Rob. Darcy, get behind him.” 

“No one is going to shoot me,” Rob said. 

“We’ll see,” Rise said.

She opened the door to an empty corridor. Darcy was a little disappointed - she had really worked herself up for a trap. Or some sort of heroic moment. _Maybe,_ she thought, _Captain America will swoop me up into his arms and carry me to safety and morphine._ “I am going into shock, I think,” Darcy said.

“I know,” Rise said.

They walked down the corridor, and Rob had to put his hand on a pad to open the door. Darcy winced when she heard the gun shot that Rise fired from behind Rob. 

“Damnit!” said the third minion - the original minion, the one who had beat Rise. Darcy grinned. These were all the minions that they knew of. Five total, plus the grey suit lady and Rob. They had also had a minimal operation where they were keeping Jane. 

There was an elevator at the end of the room. “Thank God,” Darcy said. 

“Stairs,” Rise said.

“Oh right,” Darcy replied. 

It was good, though, it gave her something to focus on. She grit her teeth through it and may have definitely bit at the side of her cheek until it bled. 

The door at the top led them into a nondescript office building. As they opened the door, the door to the nondescript office opened. “Nice of you to make it,” Rise said.

“Cool,” Darcy said, grinned at Agent Romanov, and then decided it was probably OK to pass out.

* *

“Darcy? Darcy, shit - Darcy...”

“Oh, hey,” Darcy said, and was surprised to see the concerned eyes of Agent Clint Barton, Hawkeye, Avenger, guy who merely seemed to be tolerant of her presence in his life - professional and otherwise. “You care.” 

“Yeah,” Agent Barton replied, and then, to the rest of the people in wherever they were, “She’s awake.” 

One of the SHIELD doctors came over to Darcy, and Agent Barton moved aside slightly. “Agent Lewis, we’ve removed the bullet and now we need to do a scan to see if we do surgery to repair any injuries at the sight. You’ve been given a dose of morphine, how is your pain?”

“Still pain,” Darcy said. “Little less, still there.”

“Getting shot hurts,” Agent Barton said - and Darcy had to wonder if, since he appeared at her bedside, she could begin to call him Clint. 

“We can give you some more morphine,” the doctor said. 

“Cool,” Darcy said. “That would be cool.” 

“You’re doing really well,” Clint said.

“It’s my first time getting shot,” Darcy said, and she widened her eyes.

“Well, it was going to happen at some point,” Clint said. “One of the hazards of the job.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains some medical procedures/surgery, no graphic discussion.

Darcy did not remember a lot of what happened after that - _thanks, morphine!_ A CAT scan was done, and a consulting doctor came in. 

“To preserve functionality, I think surgery would be optimal,” he said.

“I don’t really need my arm,” Darcy replied. “So, no worries, guys.” 

“We need affirmative consent, Agent Lewis,” the surgeon said.

“I would appreciate it if you would sew my shoulder muscles back together,” Darcy replied. The medical team moved quickly - there was soon medication attached to her I.V., someone put an injection in her shoulder, and a mask was lowered and she was asked to count back from one hundred.

Darcy had had surgery once before to remove her appendix. When she was still coming out from the anesthetic, her mother had attempted to grill her to determine if she was having sex with her high school boyfriend.

This time, Matan was there. “Darcy,” he said. “How do you feel?” 

“Stoned,” Darcy replied, then realized she was in SHIELD medical and while their desire to disappear her had over rode what was probably mandatory drug testing, who knew how they might feel about it once she was damaged goods? “I mean, I think this is what being stoned feels like.” 

“So you have a left arm,” Matan said. “And I have a right one.”

“Shit,” Darcy said. “They shot my right shoulder?” 

“You should request my physical therapist. I liked him,” he said. He reached and took her uninjured hand. “And, hey, at least they shot the arm with the burns, right? Or else you would be...up shit creek?” Darcy was surprised by the physical contact, but also pleased. She had wondered if the two of them might be friends. Work friends.

“I forgot about those,” Darcy said. “The burns.”

When she was more awake she realized she could not feel her right arm. 

“That’s probably not good,” Matan said, and stood up. Darcy nodded - but it turned out that the anesthesiologist had just given her a nerve block that would help with her pain management as she healed. 

“Are you ready to get up and about? I wanted to bind your arm after you got into something more comfortable,” the surgeon said. 

“I’ll give you a minute,” Matan said. 

Darcy had her shoulder strapped to the front of her chest in a very elaborate binding that she was going to have to get someone to do for her. The doctor answered the question before she could ask it. “You’ll be on the Helicarrier for the time being, so we’ll arrange for a nurse to come each morning.”

Darcy nodded, figured, worse comes to worse, she could probably go back to school. Become a SHIELD nurse. Learn everyone’s dirt. 

The first thing she did was go and see Rise, who was two rooms over and not happy that they had decided to keep her overnight. 

“For..?” Darcy asked. She looked gruesome, to be sure - her one eye had swollen shut and her jaw, on the side where Darcy presumed the tooth had come out of, was swollen and dark. 

“Seizure,” Rise said.

“But you faked that,” Darcy replied. “How did you do that?” 

“Poked my tongue into the exposed nerve where my tooth came out,” Rise replied.

Darcy shuddered. 

“Also concussion,” she said, and Darcy took a seat in the chair next to her hospital bed. “From when my head hit the bed frame, I guess. Or when my orbital bone got fractured.”

“Shit,” Darcy said. She had done her best not to think of any of that. She wondered when she would start to get PTSD. She shuddered - she could still hear the sound of Rise’s bone cracking. “Well, I will be here too. Do they have decent TV?” 

“Fuck that,” said Tony Stark, and both of them turned, then winced from the motion. He was in the doorway. “Sorry. Brought you some iPads.”

“Thank Thor,” Darcy said, and Tony quirked a smile at her, though she could tell he was disturbed by their condition. Darcy probably still smelled like blood and puke. She winced, on his account. “Now that you’ve got time, Rise, I can totally get you into _Arrested Development._ Right in time for new episodes.” 

“Excellent choice,” Tony said. He turned, apparently hearing someone else approach. “There you are-”

“Darcy wasn’t her - oh, Agent Lewis,” Captain Rogers - Steve? - said. 

“Hey,” Darcy said. “It’s OK. It’s just a flesh wound!” She smiled at him. 

“Well,” Steve said. “The result seems to be a bit more...positive.”

“You know that reference?” Tony asked.

“We watched it the other night,” Steve said. “Hello, Rise.” 

“Hey,” Rise said. She waved her hand. 

Everyone stared at each other for a moment. 

Thankfully, Natasha appeared in the door with Agent Coulson. “We need to hold a debrief,” Agent Coulson said. 

“You want anything?” Tony asked. “Within prescribed limits, of course.”

“Diet coke?” said Darcy.

“Ice cream,” said Rise. “Well, probably milk shake.” Steve looked at her face, winced, then nodded. He and Tony left.

“Your friend sold you out,” Agent Romanoff said to Rise. Rise inhaled. 

“That’s a bad friend with benefits,” Darcy replied. “But you’ll find another.” It wasn’t until the words came out of her mouth that she realized it probably wasn’t the best thing to say, but she was going to blame the drugs. 

“Yes, looking like this,” Rise replied.

“We have an excellent plastic surgeon on call,” Agent Romanoff said. Agent Coulson nodded. Darcy supposed out of anyone, those two would know. “We’ve also located the headquarters of this group.” 

“You were right,” Agent Coulson said, which seemed to cheer Rise slightly, “that the leaders are using Loki as a recruiting ruse and are attempting to acquire Tesseract like technology. We are not sure what their end game is.”

“It is headed by two old Russian mechanical engineers and the ex-sex trafficker you are familiar with,” Agent Romanoff added. “You can probably imagine how they met. Found plenty of old HYDRA tech in various places in Russia. Some places that have mostly been forgotten about.” 

“Just out of curiosity, were we in Kyrgyzstan?” Rise asked.

Agent Romanoff pressed her lips together. “Amarillo, Texas,” she said.

“Well, you figured it would be a shit stain of a place,” Darcy said. Rise shrugged, then winced. 

“Now that we’ve located the locus on their operations we’ll be staging a raid in tomorrow at 0800,” Agent Coulson said. “If carried out, we imagine it will largely rid us of this threat - or, at least, their significant capabilities.”

“There will always be fringe groups,” Agent Romanoff said, and there was something in the set of her jaw that made Darcy feel for her. “And it’s possible there will be cells of this group that persist, even as their main base and power structure has been destroyed.” 

“Your intelligence was critical towards finding the locus,” Agent Coulson said. “Both of you did valuable work.” Darcy nodded at this, and then watched as his face softened. “I’m sorry you were targeted like this.” 

Darcy almost said _could have been worse,_ but then remembered she was talking to someone who had taken a mind-controlling extraterrestrial spear through his chest. “Thank you, sir. Agent Romanoff,” she said instead.

“I’ll make sure Stark is getting you that milkshake,” Agent Romanoff replied. “You sure you don’t want one?”

“I’m gonna go for one, I think,” Darcy said.

* *

Thor, Steve, and Jane returned for milkshakes for everyone. Darcy giggled, imagining all of them in some classic dinner - she, Jane, and Rise in poodle skirts and sweater sets, their breasts pointed and eager. Thor and Steve would definitely have varsity jackets on. There would have to be someone for Rise, though, and they’d all be angling to wear their guys letters, or rings, or whatever it was you did-

“Darcy, Jane suggested you would like, uh, raspberry?” Steve said. 

“Yes, yes, I would,” Darcy said, and grinned at Jane. “Oh, that’s good.” 

“I had them make it with whole milk,” Jane said. “No protests.”

“Thanks,” Rise said, and she took in a slow sip. “That doesn’t hurt.” 

“We will consider you in our battle tomorrow,” Thor said, “as well as the indignities suffered by the Lady Jane. It is all too popular a tactic, to target the ones we...” He looked down at Jane, who smiled up at him. _Aw,_ thought Darcy, _all it took was a second kidnapping to get those two crazy kids together. Back together?_ More likely, this was merely a detente before Jane considered something else that she needed to sort through before she felt comfortable, or whatever she needed to feel. 

“Not that you didn’t, uh, take care of yourselves,” Steve said. 

“That was mostly Rise,” Darcy said. “I just got shot in the shoulder.” 

“Yes, but you didn’t pass out until there was someone who could actually carry you out,” Rise replied. Darcy thought she was being flip until she considered how difficult it would have been for Rise to navigate that situation with her as dead weight. 

“I did what I could,” Darcy replied. Steve smiled slightly at this.

“Your wound is grievous?” Thor asked.

“I’ll get the stitches out in a week,” Darcy replied. “They had to put the muscle back together, so I’ll definitely be off active duty for awhile. But I am sure there are plenty of briefs for me to write. Right?”

“So many,” Rise said, and sighed.

“Well, you should take the time to rest,” Steve said. His voice was soft, and Darcy cocked her head slightly. “It’s important, you know. Make sure you heal.” 

“You’re supposed to talk about how essential they are to the functioning of SHIELD,” Jane said, narrowing her eyes at Steve. He frowned, and it almost looked like he was genuinely wounded, but Darcy was willing to bet he had caught on to what Thor was doing and the advantages it conferred. _That,_ Darcy thought, _is some spy shit._

“Doesn’t telling us we need to rest accomplish the same thing?” Darcy asked. She set her milkshake aside. “Thanks for that, it tasted really good.” 

“And it worked,” Jane said. Darcy felt like Rise probably gave Jane the same uncomprehending look that Darcy did, but Darcy had an idea that a very bad Jane pun or attempt at a joke was on its way. “Brought all the, uh, men to the yard.” 

“Yes,” Rise said. 

“I believe Steve is right,” Thor said. “We will leave you to rest.” 

“I’ll be out in a few minutes,” Jane said, looking up at him.

“Of course,” Thor said, and then gave her the type of smile that could melt ovaries. He and Steve stood and left.

“Jane, I love you, I really do,” Darcy replied. “But I’m really not in the mood to-”

“Darcy Lewis! What do you take me for?” Jane asked, leaning forward.

“Slightly unhinged?” Darcy said, and Rise laughed.

“Yes, but guess what - you empathize now, don’t you?” 

“Yes,” Darcy replied. “Well, sort of. They just tied us to beds. No one forced us to use our powers for evil.” Rise coughed. “Tied us to a bed, beat up Rise, and shot me in the shoulder.”

“Exactly,” Jane said. “I was so scared! You’re my best friend.” 

“Oh,” Darcy replied. “Yes.” She had been scared for Jane as well - but she had also had a job to do, and so she was able to at least shuttle it aside on occasion because she had to. She didn’t imagine there was much Jane could contribute to their rescue effort. 

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Jane said, turning towards Rise - apparently she had said what she needed to, which was what Darcy appreciated about Jane. She had feelings, she would express them succinctly, and there would be a minimum of bullshit. “Tony hacked into your friends with benefits...everything, froze his bank accounts and pasted his head on some dick pictures and then sent them to important contacts in his phone directory.”

“Well,” Rise said, and then she flinched as she attempted to smile. “That’s really nice of him. I...is that flirting?” 

“Possibly,” Jane and Darcy said at the same time.

“I bet Pepper is down with threesomes,” Darcy said.

“Oh,” Rise replied.

“I figured you were too, being Danish,” Darcy added.

“Scandinavia is not some free sex paradise,” Rise replied, then considered it for a moment. “Well, not all of the time.” 

* *

Darcy slept fitfully, probably because she wasn’t able to roll around as much as she was used to - both because of her shoulder and the pain that radiated from it whenever she put pressure on the wound and because she was in a hospital bed. 

She woke at six to a nurse who came to take blood samples and adjust her I.V., and then drifted back to sleep with the fresh infusion of painkillers. Then she woke at seven fifty when Matan arrived to give them the security feed for to watch the Avengers and several SHIELD agents with large guns taking on the main compound of the villains.

“Do they have a name?” Darcy asked, watching as Tony used one of his blasters to open the door. 

“Not that we’re aware of,” Matan replied. He chair was close to Rise’s bed, and Darcy smiled at this. “Some stupid acronym, no doubt.” Rise smiled at this. 

The battle took longer than Darcy anticipated - though this was their headquarters. They had plenty of armaments, even if they were not tesseract powered, more mechanized tanks and plenty of explosives set in place for just this situation. “Oh, dear,” Rise said, as a roar echoed in the distance. The Hulk immediately lumbered onto the scene and began to throw tanks into the walls and into other tanks.

Darcy found it cathartic, though she knew that it was a very unpleasant process for Dr. Banner. “I don’t want to make light of it,” she said, “Because...but, it would be kind of nice, every now and again, to just be able to go and smash things.” 

“Yeah,” Matan and Rise both said, and Darcy frowned as Natasha was flipped onto the floor by one of the minions - but Thor was quick to hit him with Mjolnir like he was a whack-a-mole, and hey, _that’s an idea,_ Darcy thought. _Franchise those out on the side. SHIELD pays well, but that could help with the old college loans..._

The rest proceeded in a blur, and the Avengers eventually managed to get through the whole facility. SHIELD teams entered - one to clean up and march the minions and chief evil-doers out, others to go in and extract all of the computer information that they could.

Rise sighed. “Please tell me that’s not because you _want_ to read all the shit they found,” Darcy said. When Rise didn’t reply, she shook her head. 

“You already know what it says, anyway,” Matan said. 

“Yes, but figured that out too late,” she said. “We would not have wound up like this-” 

“They diverted us away from that research, though, to focus on those assassinations and the Indonesian fundamentalist group,” Darcy replied. Rise nodded. Darcy got it - despite outward presentations, she was a perfectionist. Not as much as Rise, it seemed. “If you hadn’t been disappeared, would you still be working at the UN?” It was the only real diversion Darcy could think of. 

“My appointment would be up by now,” Rise said. “So likely back to Denmark.” 

“You don’t like Denmark?” Matan asked.

“Things move at a different pace there,” Rise replied. “After living in New York, it’s...no, I love it, but it feels like a different world, you know?”

“Like everything outside of this place,” Matan said, and sighed.

“Well, aren’t we being a bunch of Debbie Downers,” Darcy said. 

There was a long pause. “There was a show you wanted me to watch..?” Rise said.

“Arrested Development,” Darcy replied. Matan grinned. “You know of it?”

“My favorite,” he said. “I had all three seasons burned from DVD onto my computer and I carried the DVDs everywhere - you don’t get a lot of downtime in the army, you know, but 23 minutes is about right.” 

“Who is your favorite?” Darcy asked. It let her get a feel for other fans.

“So hard...” Matan said, and he sighed. “Buster.”

“Gob,” Darcy said. Always and forever. Matan nodded.

“I have pulled it up and sent it to the television,” Rise said. She sounded like a school teacher.

“Yes, mom,” Darcy said. Then she felt bad, because she could see Rise redden even with all of the bruising, and really, how much older could she be? 

“I feel like I should make some sort of joke about appreciating older women to counter that,” Matan said, smiling slightly at her. “But...”

“No, that was well played,” Rise said.

_They are so going to get it on,_ Darcy thought. She felt like she could take credit for facilitating, at least. Not that she did anything directly, but she had spent weeks in a cramped office with the two of them, or out getting beers after work. _Now you just need to get Jane laid,_ she thought. Not that sex solved everything. But it was nice to be in a relationship with another person. 

* * * 

“Don’t fuck with me, Jane Foster, I’m high on morphine,” Darcy said.

“I doubt they would give you morphine,” Jane replied. “That’s old school - more like dilaudid. Synthetic, clean - you feel that high almost instantly.” 

“Great, do we need to talk about your drug problems now too?” Darcy asked.

“You know how much I like medical dramas,” Jane said, and crossed her arms. “Also, remember when I told you about my broken ankle?”

“Oh, right,” Darcy said. She had forgot that story, but it was a pretty classic Jane one. Jane had been sort of hooking up with some guy - in the vaguest college sense of hooking up - and he had wanted to go skateboarding on a particularly hilly part of campus. Jane had decided to impress him, despite never skateboarding before, and had jumped off when things started to go too fast. She spent two weeks at home after surgery to put her ankle back together and a miserable semester crutching around campus. Darcy wondered if maybe this could give her some broader insight into Jane and men-

“Anyway,” Jane said. “What am I fucking with you about?”

“Thor,” Darcy replied. Jane cocked her head. “I mean, he apologized - he gave some kind of explanation, and I’m pretty sure you did the math to see if he was correct about the whole travel time disparity-” Jane reddened at this. _Gotcha,_ Darcy thought, “-and he’s been nothing but gracious and good since he came back. So. What’s the problem?” 

“I guess it makes sense,” Jane said, and she was more thinking out loud, “that he would be more involved with his wayward brother that he’s known for centuries, following the New York thing, than wanting to use his magic hammer to fly out and see someone he knew for a few days...it just stings, you know, getting an e-mail, Thor sends his love!”

“Yeah, well, things kind of sucked for everyone then,” Darcy said. “They sent me to Manitoba.” Jane considered this, then nodded her head. “Just, like, push that aside. He’s been nothing but awesome since you got rescued. And he came straight down when you were taken - unless there are larger existential issues?” 

“He’s centuries old and from another realm?” Jane said. 

“Dude, these things happen.”

“Not really,” Jane replied. 

“Aliens did invade New York City,” Darcy replied. “Not to mention the question of how Dr. Banner manages to acquire all that additional mass-”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Jane said. It was a tactic Darcy had frequently used when Jane was getting upset about something personal - pose a science question! Soon, she would be scribbling and working on something instead of dwelling on something she had no control over.

“Worth a shot,” Darcy said. 

Jane glanced at her watch. “I was actually supposed to come and get you for dinner,” she said. 

“Oh,” Darcy said. “Oops.”

“It’s OK, you’re all...” Jane waved one hand at her other arm. 

Darcy was glad to have Jane walking with her - laying in her bed, she had felt awesomely stoned and ready to accomplish anything. Walking, though, she more felt like she was in a strange tunnel and that it was moving around her as she attempted to navigate it. 

They had the same two person room they had occupied before. Darcy was relieved to see this - she didn’t want people asking questions, telling her she had been brave, making comments on how long her recovery might take based on their experience. She didn’t want to think about. 

“So, what do I do, then?” Jane asked.

“With Thor? He’s like...I think he’s pretty easy,” Darcy replied. 

Jane pressed her lips together. “That’s what everyone thinks, but-”

“I don’t mean...I mean, more like, you say, Thor, I like you, I wasn’t sure how I felt about things but now I am...and then he sweeps you up into his big manly arms and-”

“He does have very nice arms,” Jane said.

“His biceps have biceps,” Darcy replied. Jane nodded. “You promise to tell me if he has weird alien junk, right?”

“What?” Jane said, and raised her eyebrows almost into her hairline.

“Well, I mean, sure, he looks human, but you never know,” Darcy said. “Maybe the alien part of him is all centered on his cock - if he has one.”

“If you even say tentacles, I am done with you,” Jane said. Darcy smiled, then settled back into her chair when their dinner arrived.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here, plot sort of ties up? Or not! Feedback welcome. I never plot anything. Or try and tie it together. I'm serious - concrit seriously welcome.
> 
> References/comments to being high on prescription painkillers following an injury.

“Lady Darcy?” 

Darcy looked up from her iPad, where she was watching, on Rise’ recommendation, Peep Show - which only reaffirmed her feeling that she and Rise were friends, sort of, because they understood one another. 

She had not expected Thor to visit by himself, but then again, she probably should have.

“Hello, Thor, come on in,” Darcy said. She glanced at the small chair next to her bed. Thor shrugged his shoulders and sat on the edge of it, keeping his weight off of it. 

“I only wished to thank you,” he said. “You have been a great comfort to the Lady Jane.” 

“I think you already thanked me for that,” Darcy replied. “But it’s nice.”

“Also,” Thor said, “because I feel you were the one who encouraged Jane to share her thoughts with me.”

“Oh,” Darcy said. Then, “Yeah.” Thor smiled. 

“I have never felt this way about someone from your realm,” Thor said. 

“Well, to be fair, I don’t think Jane has ever felt this way about a Space Viking,” Darcy said.

Thor looked at her for a moment, translating in his head, and then he grinned. “Aye,” he said. “Space Viking - that is as good a description of the Aesir as any, I think. Though I believe we inspired the Vikings more than they inspired us.” 

Darcy shrugged, and Thor smiled. “ I do what I can,” Darcy replied. 

“I am also sorry you were wounded in the line of duty by such...misguided, foolish people.” Thor shook his head. 

“Well, I mean, I know they were trying to get you to ignite their weapons or whatever, but it isn’t your fault-”

“My brother’s rage continues to impact those I care for in this realm,” Thor said. He sighed. “I am sure Loki is quite pleased by this.” 

Darcy didn’t have much to say to this, because what Thor said was true. It was strange, she thought, how much he had matured over such a short period of time - from the guy who smashed his coffee mug on the floor and stomped around town demanding dogs large enough to ride to this thoughtful, melancholy person. Tragedy could do that to you, though. 

“I’ll be alright,” Darcy said, instead. “But I appreciate it, Thor...I, uh...thanks.” 

“We all too often underestimate the value of true friendship,” Thor said. 

Darcy wanted to laugh, but she knew that Thor meant this in the most sincere fashion - and, hell, in Asgardian, maybe it didn’t sound like it belonged on a refrigerator magnet. “I will always try and keep that in mind,” she said. 

“Good,” Thor said. “Is there anything I might do to aid you?” Darcy narrowed her eyes at him, instantly suspicious - _it was all just a ruse! He’s in on it to, damnit, Jane_ \- she thought, but then saw Thor was completely earnest and serious. There were many things that Thor was very good at. Concealing pretext was still not one of them. 

“I don’t believe so,” Darcy replied. “Unless you can get me out of here? Heal wounds?” 

“Unfortunately,” Thor replied, still completely sincere, “I am not skilled in the arts of sorcery and healing.” 

“Thought I would check,” Darcy said.

“I see,” Thor said, and he smiled slightly. “So I suppose we will have to do, what is called, a rain check?” Darcy nodded. “Though I am unclear as to how would could write a check using water, it is a most curious expression.” 

“Oh,” Darcy replied. “It’s like, if an event is rained out, then the event will go on again, and you get a rain check so you don’t have to pay twice. I think. That’s extrapolating from how you get one if the grocery store is out of Lucky Charms when they’re on sale, or...whatever.” 

“Yes,” Thor replied. “That would make more sense.” He paused. “I have eaten these Lucky Charms. Barton is most fond of them.” Darcy smiled, and then Thor shook his head. “I do not know which is worse, the Charms or the Popped Tarts.” 

“I made it better with coffee and waffles,” Darcy said, and Thor smiled at her.

“Aye,” he said. “I shall leave you to rest, Darcy.” 

“Thanks again, Thor,” Darcy said. After he left, she wondered if SHIELD would reassign her to matchmaking - or mediation. They had to have couples counseling, right? The only thing harder being two SHILED agents married to one another was likely being a SHIELD agent married to a non-HIELD agent and having to convince them you were a truck driver, or something. 

* * 

“You know,” Jane said, after Darcy was moved into her temporary recovery quarters on the Helicarrier, “I was going to tell you that you should come and recover in my guest bedroom.” 

“That would be counterproductive,” Darcy said. “That would be a cock block.”

“We haven’t gotten to cock yet,” Jane replied. Darcy frowned. “The beds are that big!” Jane said, and pointed to the slightly larger than college dorm sized bed that Darcy was seated on. 

“You don’t have to fuck on a bed,” Darcy replied. “Hell, you could just give him a good old-fashioned shower blow-job-”

“Darcy!” Jane said.

“Like you’ve never given head before,” Darcy said. 

“Hello, Agent Lewis,” Clint - Agent Barton, she supposed, given the way he addressed her, except she wasn’t cleared for active duty. She grimaced. 

“Hello, Agent Barton,” Darcy said. She probably shouldn’t have taken that second Percocet. 

“I know you’re still on medical leave, but Agent Coulson and Agent Romanov will be interrogating some of our captives this afternoon, and they thought it may be useful for you to attend,” he said. “He said it’s generally beneficial to listen to an interrogation rather than read it over.”

“Oh,” Darcy said. “That should be fine. As long as I don’t have to do anything.” Agent Barton’s eyes drifted over to the large, clear orange bottle on her dresser and he smiled at her. A knowing smile. Darcy wondered what the rate of painkiller abuse was amongst SHIELD agents, since medical seemed to hand it out like candy. 

Darcy walked behind Agent Barton over to the interrogation room. Rise was already seated in a chair, legs crossed, sweats a little too short on her legs. She nodded at Darcy. The swelling in her face had gone down. but she almost looked worse now that the swelling was replaced by a melange of colors spreading further out across her face. 

Rob the Sex Trafficker was sitting in the interrogation room, giving a smug look to the jug of ice water and glass that had been set out in front of him. “But obviously we know that he watches SVU,” Darcy replied.

“Yes,” Rise replied. She sounded grouchy, and Darcy didn’t want to interrogate it. 

They waited another few minutes before Agent Coulson entered the room with a leather folder in hand. He sat across from Rob - well, Robert. Or whatever. “Mr. Talbert, it’s nice to meet you,” Agent Coulson said. 

“Is it?” Rob replied. 

“I’m an administrator myself,” Agent Coulson said, and he opened his folder to reveal several different forms in varying shades of cream and grey. Rise smiled slightly at this. “Though I don’t have any formal training in it.”

“I have an M.B.A.,” Rob replied. Darcy could tell there was just the slightest annoyance in his voice.

“Right, Master of Business Administration,” Agent Coulson replied. 

“At Wharton,” said Rob. 

“Yes,” Agent Coulson said, and he ticked a box on the form. “You are aware that we have captured both of your bosses and are currently interrogating them.” 

“Bosses?” Rob asked.

“Yes,” Agent Coulson said. “We located them at headquarters and they indicated they headed your organization.” 

“The three of us headed things,” Rob said. “Many heads, you know?”

“Mmm,” Agent Coulson said, and ticked another box and then flipped a form over. “Well, we’ll soon hear what they have to say, I suppose.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out of a pair of reading glasses Darcy was certain he didn’t need. “Your father disinherited you.”

“After I spent my trust,” Rob replied, leaning back in his chair. “Said I got everything I was going to get.” Agent Coulson ticked another box. 

“Damnit,” Rise muttered. 

“What?” Darcy asked, as Coulson asked him various mundane questions - number of brothers and sisters, where he went to undergraduate.

“They advised...they said he would be interested in me, but he did not have insecurities about women.” 

“Oh,” Darcy said. “I suppose that makes sense.” 

“We found your funds,” Agent Coulson replied.

“Yes, I suppose you would have,” Rob said.

“Investing in Jersey is fairly common for U.K. citizens, you know,” Agent Coulson said.

Rob the Sex Trafficker’s face fell. “Jersey?” Darcy asked. “Like the Jersey Shore?”

“Jersey, Channel Island,” Rise replied. Darcy shook her head. “Independent islands between England and France..?”

“I’ll have to Wikipedia this,” Darcy said.

“Well, I suppose that’s all I need,” Agent Coulson said, closing his leather folder. “I appreciate your keeping this professional.” He stood, and made it to the door before Rob said anything.

“You have no idea what I know,” he said. 

“So efficient,” Rise replied. She leaned back - and Darcy could see her adopting Agent Coulson’s bland, bureaucratic style to great effect. 

“You weren’t trained in interrogation techniques,” Darcy replied, and then reached over and pat Rise gently on her forearm. Rise smiled. “I mean, that’s not a required skill at the UN.” 

“Not unless you are trying to get office supplies.” 

“No, I know everything that you know,” Agent Coulson replied. “I need to go and speak with Anasenko and Nechayev.” 

“I was running the whole thing,” Rob said, and crossed his arms. “I know everything - they were more interested in the power, in the terror, in getting what they wanted-”

“HYDRA,” Agent Coulson replied. “We know, they were trying to get HYDRA’s attention by activating their weaponry. Once the Tesseract left their possession they were much less effective, and once it left Earth...” 

Rob narrowed his eyes. Darcy almost felt sorry for him. 

“You would offer them power,” Agent Coulson said. “But if you have the weapons, what do you need from them?” 

“The ser-” Rob began, and then stopped and glared at Agent Coulson.

“Shit,” said Rise, eyebrows raising as far as they could get. “Shit, shit - I need an iPad connected to the SHIELD network-”

“You don’t need to be wor-” Agent Barton said, but Rise turned and glowered at him. The fact that one of her eyes appeared not to be level with the rest of her face really helped with the effect. “I’ll put the order through,” he said, typing quickly onto his phone. “What do you think..?”

“When we were in Chernobyl,” Rise said. 

“The inspectors that were kidnapped were cataloguing mutated animals,” Darcy replied.

“No one has been able to recreate the super soldier serum since Erksine,” Rise replied. “Though many have tried...and while they may have been able to catalyze the serum, or close to it, no one can figure out what the Vita-Rays were-”

“You think they were looking at those animals to see if a similar kind of reaction was occurring - wait, you think they injected the animals?” Darcy said.

“If you were doing wacky genetic experiments, where would be a good place to hide the evidence?” Rise asked. A junior agent entered the room they were sitting in and handed Rise the iPad. She immediately began typing on it. “That’s what he wants out of this - he doesn’t want to be just an administrator.” 

It became clear to Darcy that she had not been given one hundred per cent information on their trip - not that she had expected it, being a newly minted junior agent.

“You’d think-” Darcy began, and then she stopped. _You’d think they would learn,_ she wanted to say, but she had actually met the person she was referencing and it felt wrong to put that thought out loud, since she didn’t really know the circumstances behind what happened to Dr. Banner. 

“Hold on,” Agent Barton said, and he nodded his head at the interrogation room. Agent Romanoff had slipped in as Agent Coulson sat and smiled at Rob Talbert, WASP gone wrong. 

“You really think HYDRA would trade what they know of the serum for your weapons?” Agent Romanoff asked. 

“You really think an organization like that wouldn’t want to be restored to full functionality?” Rob said. “You have no idea what they have, the damage they were able to cause during World War II-” Darcy wrinkled her nose - was it not general knowledge that the Captain America they had was _the_ Captain America. _Probably should pay more attention to that stuff,_ she thought. 

“Oh, I have an idea,” Agent Romanoff replied. 

“You’re going to tell me that my Russian friends told me everything?” Rob asked.

“Oh, they told me nothing. But you’ve given us more than enough and I think they will be really appreciative of that when we put you back in the cell with them.” She smiled at him and considered her fingernails. 

Rise tapped furiously on her iPad as Coulson and Agent Romanoff stared at Rob. Agent Romanoff slowly began to smile. 

“What do you need me to do?” Rob asked. 

Clint tapped on his cell phone, and somehow, it must have gone to Agent Coulson. He stood, without a word, and stepped out.

“What did you find?” he asked.

“In Chernobyl, they were working on a form of the super soldier serum - HYDRA, using Zola’s formulation that he got from Schmidt...but we have the Russians involved, as well, and they’ve got an imperfect version they’ve been trying to work on...that’s why those inspectors were kidnapped, because neither group wanted them to find out what they had been doing.” Agent Coulson nodded, though Darcy was struggling a little bit - though she was pleased that Rise had finally managed to make one of the connections that had been just beyond her for a few months now. Darcy could see why Rise had been disappeared. 

“You think the Russians are already working for HYDRA?” 

“Rob Talbert’s being played just as much as all the Loki worshippers were,” Rise said. “To get his expertise, specifically at moving people, and just generally - they promised him the serum. And maybe they wanted him as a test subject.” 

Agent Coulson nodded, and Darcy had to smile. Hopefully this would get Rise a plaque or something. A commendation. Whatever it was they did. Agent Coulson glanced over at Darcy, and she looked down, trying to put her best agent face back on. “Apologies, sir,” she replied.

“None needed, Agent Lewis,” Agent Coulson replied. _Oh, right,_ Darcy thought. _He’s been there. Here. Where I am. With the wound and the drugs. But more._

“We’ll confirm that with Mr. Talbert or the Russians and I’ll get a report to you, Agent Freisen - though I doubt we’ll be moving on this immediately. We’ve prioritized cleaning up and clearing out al of the HYDRA weapons from the group’s various caches.” 

Rise inhaled, and then nodded. “Thank you, sir,” she replied. 

They walked back to their recovery rooms together while Agent Barton stayed behind. Darcy sighed about halfway. “It wasn’t for us to learn...they knew you would figure it out if you saw. Because you had gone through all that shit-” 

“Well, it was for you to learn,” Rise replied.

“They’re never going to have me do anything like,” Darcy said. 

“You’ve already done some pretty interesting things,” Rise replied. “Especially for a junior agent.” 

“We have to fill out some paperwork to update my clearance, by the way,” Darcy said. “I mean, when we’re done healing. I think I should get a higher one, after all that.” 

“Probably,” Rise agreed. “Do you want me to spoil it for you?”

“Please,” said Darcy.

“Lord Xenu is responsible for-”

“No,” Darcy replied. “Just no.” 

* * * 

Getting kidnapped and injured on the job apparently afforded you the use of the private dining facility, and Darcy made note of this. The Helicarrier cafeteria could get very loud and cramped, especially during popular meal times. Aside from the good drugs, this was probably her favorite result. 

“You have been to Israel?” Matan said, drinking his after dinner coffee. Darcy thought it was adorable that 

“We talked about this,” Darcy replied. “I went for my birthright.” 

“You liked it.” 

“That wasn’t a question,” Darcy replied. “But I did like it, though my parents threw a shit when I decided to go...they were convinced I was going to get killed or whatever but they are controlling bastards and wouldn’t let me go abroad but now I have been to Chernobyl and an atoll, so they can suck it.” 

“And Canada,” Rise said. “And Yakutsk. And Texas.” 

“Yes,” Darcy said. “They can definitely suck it.” 

“Am I interrupting?” 

“This always happens when I talk about...” Darcy said, “Hello, Captain.” Less Percocet, possibly - but she had been told it was important to properly manage her pain because it would only get out of hand if she didn’t medicate as soon as it started. And she had been shot in the shoulder. 

Darcy smiled, even though she knew she didn’t look her best. She hadn’t had a proper shower since she had been shot, only sponge baths or what Mama Lewis liked to refer to as _whore’s showers_ and she had done her hair with dry shampoo. She was also wearing a SHIELD sweatsuit, which was not high on anyone’s list of desirable outfits, even men who liked athletic women.

“Steve, please,” he said. “Jane asked if I could come and get you. If you were done.” He gave her an awkward smile, and she looked down at the meal she had barely eaten. 

“Sit down, Captain,” Rise said. “We can get you something to eat, I’m sure.” 

“Oh,” said Steve, please. “Well, I haven’t had dinner yet.”

“Perfect,” said Matan, and he stood and went through the door that linked to the main kitchen. Steve stood for a moment before Rise gestured at a chair for him to sit in. A chair next to Darcy.

“Working on all of those HYDRA weapons?” Rise asked.

“I remember some of them,” Steve replied. “It’s...frustrating.” He looked distant, for a moment, and Darcy wanted to pat his arm - but they really hadn’t got to that point yet. And it was kind of awkward, to know all about his man pain, his lost girlfriend and best friend, the whole man out of time thing, when he knew nothing about her. 

Matan came back in with a tray loaded with food, and he set it in front of Steve without comment. “Actually, I don’t think we’ve met,” Steve said.

“Ah, Matan Zahavi - I’m in intelligence-”

“You were in New York, though, I really think I saw you there?” Steve replied.

Matan looked down and twisted his lips slightly. “I was,” he said. “I had a chunk of building fall on me.” He lifted up the sleeve of his shirt to show off the Frankenscar at his wrist.

“The one on your upper arm is better,” Darcy said.

“It is,” Matan replied, “but that would be inappropriate.”

“I’m sorry,” said Steve.

“No, you know, it’s good,” Matan said. “I like this work better.” 

Darcy almost said some stupid platitude, like _sometimes things work out for the best,_ but then remembered who she was seated next to and just nodded. 

“I heard you made a break through with these guys,” Steve said to Rise, after eating a large bite of mashed potatoes.

“Oh, well,” Rise said. “It wasn’t...”

“It was,” Darcy said. “She linked together all this with our little excursion to Chernobyl, which is a really nice way to tie things up.” 

“You went to Chernobyl?” Steve asked, and looked concerned. 

“I got a second opinion and they assured me I hadn’t been detrimentally irradiated,” Darcy replied.

“Still,” said Steve. 

Darcy shrugged. “That’s the kind of thing you get, being a top secret spy agent whatever.” 

“I need that on my business card,” Rise replied.

“We get business cards?” Darcy asked.

Matan shook his head. “Just the phony ones,” he said. “The ones that say you work for something that seems like a deliberate CIA cover. Didn’t you get those?”

“I guess I don’t rank,” Darcy said. Another reason to up her security clearance. “What are you?”

“Department of Transportation,” Matan said.

“Interior,” said Rise. She laughed. “I’m sorry, that was inappropriate.”

“Was it?” Steve asked, and the expression on his face was adorable. Darcy had to look away.

“Possibly,” said Matan. 

Conversation drifted from there, and Darcy ate quickly - under the belief that Jane actually had something she wanted to talk about and show her, and not that she had used that as an excuse to get Darcy more contact with Steve Rogers. It was starting to get a little silly - she had accepted that he was her coworker, and there were some awkward interactions, but really, she was punching way above her weight on this one. 

“Jane and Thor seem...happy, now,” Steve said. “That’s good - though I can understand why she was angry.”

“Yeah,” Darcy replied. “Long distance relationships are always tricky.”

Steve laughed at this and put his hands in his pockets. “How long are you out for?”

“In another four days I’m back on active duty,” Darcy replied. “I think they’re going to let me go back to my apartment tomorrow, though, which is when I can get out of this brace and into just a sling.”

“That will be nice,” Steve said, as they arrived at the lab where Jane, Bruce, and Steve had set up. “It’s always good to go home.”

 _Oh, poor baby,_ Darcy thought, because he got that look again. “Thanks,” she said.

“Any time,” he replied, and he was fidgeting with his hands inside his pants pockets, like he wanted to do something but didn’t have the proper programming for its execution. “Anyway. I’ll see you around.”

“Sure,” Darcy said - and it was good, she thought, to get confirmation. She entered the lab. “Jane Foster, this better be good!” 

Jane poked her head up from a table and smiled at Darcy. “I need your help,” she said. Darcy inhaled. She couldn’t imagine. Well, she sort of could. “So, it turns out, you were right, about just sort of - you know, going for things, and also, they gave Thor a really big bed-”

“As they would,” Darcy replied, “given he’s really big himself.”

“Exactly,” Jane said, and then didn’t say anything else. She blinked at Darcy several times.

“Oh,” Darcy said, finally. She sat down on a rolling stool and made an undignified noise when it nearly got out from underneath her. “I see.”

“What do I do?” Jane asked.

“What do you mean, what do you do? You have had sex before this, right?”

“Not with something like _that_ ,” Jane said, and there was genuine fear in her eyes. Darcy inhaled - there was a significant size discrepancy.

“And you think I would know because..?”

“You talked about dating that guy, the water polo player, who was like six five,” Jane said. “So I assumed-”

“Oh, OK,” Darcy said, and smiled. “I thought you thought I was slutty.”

“Well, you are,” Jane said. “But that didn’t motivate this inquiry.” Darcy laughed at this.

“You know, you didn’t have to drag her all the way down here,” came Tony Stark’s voice from somewhere on the other side of the lab. Darcy opened her mouth wide and then covered it. _I will get you for this, Jane Foster,_ she thought. _If it’s the last thing I do._

“Well...” Jane began.

“You could have asked Bruce,” Tony finished. 

“Really?” came Dr. Banner’s voice, from somewhere near Tony. Darcy closed her eyes and shook her head. 

“Let’s go get coffee and discuss this further...there,” Darcy said, and Jane nodded, grinning slightly.


	12. Chapter 12

“Hello, office,” Darcy said. It was in the exact state she had left it, which was disappointing - half drank coffee, wrappers from the Hersey kisses she had taken from the welcome desk, scribbles on the legal pad she had made that did not reflect well on her as an intelligent human being. “Oh, office.” Her plant had died, it seemed. This was probably why Rise had advised her to get succulents. 

She sat down and started drafting her report on what had happened - general policy was to debrief an agent and then have them write after they returned from work and the situation wasn’t so immediate. Then she checked her calendar and sighed - nothing on it, even though she was on light duty and really, all that precluded her from doing was lifting the massive boxes of data and due diligence they sometimes had to read through. _Oh, wait,_ she thought, noticing a block, _A mandatory counseling appointment!_

Darcy sighed and checked her mail box, hoping that there was an assignment for her. Nothing even from Rise, who was... _where is she?_ Darcy wondered. She had slept when she got back to her apartment, attempted to take a real shower, gave up, took a bath, and then slept again. She sent Matan an e-mail. 

He was in her door two minutes later. “It’s pretty quiet around here,” he said. “She’s over at headquarters giving presentations on the connection she made between our ineffective wannabe group and the real HYDRA group and your little Chernobyl trip.” 

“Power points?” Darcy asked. Matan nodded. “Uh.” 

“You would think, you know, Stark is a consultant and all of these other geniuses, and no one has come up with something better than power point. You want to go and get coffee?”

“Sure,” Darcy said. 

She was surprised, as they walked to the main atrium where the coffee dispensary was, that people were stopping her and telling her they were glad to hear that she was well. She hadn’t really interacted much with people beyond casual chatter at the coffee station or the commissary outside of work projects. It was nice to know she was liked. That this probably meant she was doing well. 

“So...” Darcy said, after they collected their coffee.

Matan looked at her, sipped his coffee, and then said, “Uh.”

“Just ask her out,” Darcy said. 

Matan blinked at her and it was completely unconvincing. It was probably for the best that he’d been taken out of the field. “You...uh...”

“It’s not, like, overwhelming obvious or anything,” Darcy said. “You’re not coming across as lovesick, or whatever. But. I spend a lot of time with you two.”

“Yeah,” Matan said. 

“So just ask her out,” Darcy said. “I’ve already had to mediate all of Jane and Thor’s shit.” 

“Really?”

“I was her intern,” Darcy said. Matan nodded. “And she’s great, she really is, and it’s not like there weren’t things for her to be upset about. On top of the kidnapping. But damn, just go with the fact that Prince Space Viking likes you, right?” 

“That’s probably good advice,” Matan said, and he smiled. “It’s just-”

“What did I just-”

Matan pressed on, and Darcy sat back and sighed. “She’s a lot older than me. Is that weird?”

“Just don’t call her a cougar,” Darcy said.

“Good to see you back, Agent Lewis,” said one of the intelligence operatives who she had worked under for a week - she was probably at Rise’s level of seniority. Or whatever level Rise had been when they started. Darcy had no doubt that if she had got an upgrade, Rise had got one as well. And! Twenty-five cent raise! 

“Thank you,” Darcy said.

“And it’s good to see your recovery is still on track, Agent Zahavi,” the agent said.

“Yes,” Matan replied. “Thanks.” As soon as she was out of earshot, he leaned into Darcy. “We are like one big happy fucking family, aren’t we?”

“You’re finally going back to full capacity?” Darcy asked.

“Not field capacity, but I guess I’ll be lifting some of those boxes for you pretty soon,” Matan said. “You’ll have to find someone else to carry them...you know, I bet-”

“Nope.”

“Nope?” Matan asked, turning his head to the side. Darcy shook her head.

“Is this what it’s like, being in an adult workplace? Because I thought talking about who liked who and who was sleeping with who was just a college thing,” Darcy said, hoping that it would be a good enough deflection she wouldn’t have to explain her feelings on things. 

“What else is there to talk about?” Matan asked. Then he sighed, reached into his pocket, and pulled out his Blackberry. “Looks like I’m getting staffed on something - take it easy for a couple of days, Darcy, no one is going to fault you for that. Not everyone here has even been shot.”

“I suppose,” Darcy said. She watched as Matan walked out, then looked down at her own Blackberry. Someone had sent her a forward from the field officers listserve where an agent was offering up four tickets he had for that Sunday’s game out at the Meadowlands. Darcy sighed.

* *

She was spaced out in front of computer when there was a knock on her door - _thanks, listverse!_ She was definitely putting those hours down for general training purposes, because she had stuck to the _Weird_ and _Creepy_ lists. 

“Yes?” 

“Hello, Agent Lewis.” Agent Barton grinned at her. He was back in a suit similar to the one he wore when she first met him, and it was a striking image. For a moment she thought that she was going to get fired, or returned to her parents, or just left on the street. “We need your assistance with a few things over at Headquarters.”

“My assistance?” she asked. 

“Filling in some holes,” said Agent Barton. “Dr. Foster says she’ll take you out for dinner after.”

“And you got sent to just come and get me?” Darcy asked.

Agent Barton shrugged. “And pick up a bunch of boxes.”

“Isn’t that way above your pay grade?” she asked. 

“Very much so,” said Agent Barton. “But when given the option between going on a solo mission in some developing urban hell or running around doing random errands, guess what I am picking?” 

“Fair enough,” Darcy replied. 

She followed Agent Barton out to a nondescript, black Toyota loaded with several boxes. “Any preferences?” he asked, nodding at the Sirius radio. 

“I don’t think so,” Darcy replied. “Whatever.” She shouldn’t have said this - turned out that Agent Barton didn’t have the best taste in music. Indeterminable noise and metal music kept conversation to minimum, and Darcy was kind of relieved. She enjoyed the fact that she had spent a couple months sort of hanging out with super heroes - but when this was where it got you, she was willing to just hang around her office, drink coffee, and talk about who was fucking who. 

Headquarters was in Times Square, and once they turned up and Agent Barton got the boxes out another SHIELD agent appeared and drove off in the car. “Is that thing ever parked?” Darcy asked. 

“Probably not,” Agent Barton replied. “I think I road in that thing going out to New Mexico to - oh, well, you know.”

“Yeah,” Darcy said. “Good times.” 

“Eh,” Agent Barton said, and smiled at her as they walked into the building. Darcy fumbled to get at her clearance, and the guard rolled his eyes. “Hey, injured in the line of duty, buddy,” Agent Barton said, and Darcy gave him a soft smile. What did he think? That she had fallen when she was trying to paint her living room ceiling? 

“Here you go,” Agent Barton said, dropping her off at a door on the fourth floor. “Godspeed.” 

“OK,” Darcy replied - she figured she was capable of answering more annoying questions about just how she and Rise had managed to get out from the minions and Rob the Wannabe Super Soldier. She opened the door and then made a tiny, undignified noise in her throat when she was met with one eye and an eye patch facing her from behind a pristine black desk.

“Agent Lewis,” said Director Fury, not standing, and Darcy glanced around to determine that the room was empty save for the two of them. “Take a seat.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, and was careful as she sat across from him. His seat was significantly higher - she remembered this from a psychology class she had taken.

“How are you?” 

“Well, sir,” she replied, then followed his gaze to her shoulder. “I’ve been making my benchmakrs so far.” Fury stared at her. “In terms of healing.” 

“Yes, I got that report,” Director Fury said. He stared at her.

_This is probably a thing,_ Darcy thought. _Does that mean Director Fury judges you by how well you can play staring contest with him?_

“I was told your work was integral to the agency’s success in linking together several groups we’ve been monitoring.” 

“I worked along side Agent Friesen, sir, but she was the one whose work was integral.” 

“She is very adept,” Director Fury replied. “It was why she was recruited.”

Darcy tried, but failed to keep her expression from showing her confusion - Rise claimed she had been disappeared, as well, having stumbled on SHIELD as part of her research. Unless that was how SHIELD recruited. Which meant - no, actually, not in her case. Unless they had been the ones to toss Thor out of the sky, but Darcy was pretty sure at this point that Loki was real and that was pretty elaborate, honestly, they could have just come to her career fair-

“Agent Lewis?”

“Sorry, sir,” she said, and met his eye. 

“I want you to know that it is not normal procedure at SHIELD for someone of your clearance level and security to have access to these sorts of matters,” Director Fury replied. “In fact, your access seems to defy our regular security classifications. For example, you know the identity of Hawkeye- but remain disconnected and ignorant of many of the other Level 7 matters this organization deals with.” 

_Well, that’s something,_ Darcy thought. 

“I understand,” she replied. 

“Good,” said Director Fury. “We’ll be moving forward with attempting to locate the operating core of HYDRA. We’re beginning by looking at the man you were tracking in Chernobyl.” Darcy nodded, and thought, _Oh dear god please don’t send me back-_ “Unfortunately your and Agent Friesen’s injuries and lack of psychological clearance prevent you from being sent into the field, though I will be using you to analyze data here.” 

“Yes, sir,” Darcy said, though she was intrigued that she didn’t receive psychological clearance - _well, who are you kidding?_ Then she remembered that her therapist said she had to attend a meeting in the week, so that was probably what was going on.

“Good,” said Director Fury. “You’re dismissed.”

“Thank you, sir,” Darcy said. She stood, made one last final bit of good, competent eye contact, and then walked out.

She expected Jane or Agent Barton or Rise would be waiting for her - but the hallway was empty. Darcy pursed her lips together. She’d only been on the first floor of SHIELD HQ for a reception, and she had a feeling that her chimeric security clearance might prove a barrier to her movement.

She went back to the elevator and could only get to the first floor, where there was a commissary, atrium, and exact replica of the coffee dispensary they had out in New Jersey. 

“Oh, hello, uh, Agent Lewis.” 

Darcy turned and smiled at Steve Rogers. “How are you, Captain?” 

“I’m...well,” he said. He was wearing one of his standard old man outfits - and looking flawless, of course. “Are you meeting someone?”

“I just got out of a meeting - excuse me,” Darcy said. 

_Can’t make it sorry Darcy but Thor has decided to take me out on a date he said Tony said he had to so this HAS TO BE GOOD RIGHT?_ Darcy sighed. For someone with a phD Jane really did enjoy abusing caps lock.

“Sorry, I got out of a meeting and was supposed to meet someone but...they cancelled,” Darcy said. 

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Steve replied. “What were you, uh, going to do?”

Darcy suspected that this might be a set up, but she really didn’t care, because Steve was going along with it. “Jane was going to take me out to dinner, but I guess, uh, bros before hos. Or maybe hos before bros, in this case.”

“I’m sorry?” 

“We had plans first, I think,” Darcy said. “But then she went out with her, uh...Thor...instead.”

“Oh, yeah,” Steve said. “Huh. I could of used that saying, back then, with Bucky.” Darcy gave him a smile. “I don’t have anything planned, we could...I mean, if you’re all the way in the city...”

“Yeah,” Darcy said. “Sure. Why not?” 

* * * 

Darcy didn’t know much about Manhattan, but she knew enough that they shouldn’t be eating anything near Times Square. She poked around on her phone for a few moments and then decided that Hell’s Kitchen was probably the way forward. “What are you in the mood for?” she asked.

“Most anything,” Steve replied. “Uh, nothing too spicy.”

“That is more than fine,” Darcy said. “The Internet suggests that we might like an upscale Greek diner.”

“Sure,” Steve said. He walked with his hands in his pockets, and it made Darcy wonder if he was just doing this to be nice to her - and they must have made quite a pair, she was almost a foot shorter, wearing a nondescript black suit with her arm in a sling, while Steve looked like he had stepped off of a period movie set. “You’ve been doing alright?”

“Yeah,” Darcy said. “I don’t like just walking on the treadmill, but what can you do. Oh, and my office plant died. Really, things have been pretty boring.” Steve nodded along to this, and she had to order herself to shut her mouth. “You?” 

“I’m surprised, you know, as much as things have changed - certain groups are still around, you know? That they still have appeal.” Darcy nodded, and they were quiet for a minute until Steve continued. “You know, I, uh, have sort of wanted to ask you out for awhile.” 

Darcy glanced down and pressed her lips together to prevent her jaw from dropping, then managed to pull herself into semblance of a normal person’s smile. “Oh,” she said. “Well. I...that’s. I probably never would have asked you out - because I don’t have the balls for it, not because I don’t...but saying that is kind of sexist, so-” Thankfully, Steve reached over and took her hand and smiled at her. 

“Clint was showing me this comic, Betty White?” _Oh god,_ Darcy thought, because the whole image was probably going to meet her cute quotient for the day. “She said she didn’t understand the expression, because balls are pretty vulnerable and aren’t very tough. So we should say ovaries instead.”

Darcy blinked, because Captain America had just said balls, and then said, “Gonads.”

“That could work,” Steve replied. “Except you don’t know if you’re referring to the tough ones or not.”

“You’re right,” she said, and was really relieved he said balls because now she was a lot more relaxed about the whole thing. Also, because he liked her. Though Rise was going to be unbelievably smug about this - _until!_ Darcy realized, _you mention you sent Matan her way._

It also occurred her that she should, from now, probably say she wished she had Captain America’s balls, because those things probably didn’t get hurt nearly as easily as normal people’s balls. But most people would not think that was how she was modifying that metaphor.

_Just wait, Lewis,_ she told herself as they got to the restaurant. _There will be a time. And a place._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that's done (for now?). Thanks for all of the comments and kudos - kudii? - and reading in general, I appreciate it!


End file.
